Creating a Life of Meaning

 This week our studies were centered around creating a life of meaning.  We spent time reflecting on what core values are important to us, what our childhood dreams were and maybe still are, the bucket list items that we hope to accomplish during our time here on earth and what kind of plan we want to create for our life to help us accomplish our goals. I love this kind of pondering!  This is dreaming and planning and figuring out what brings me joy.  I have been doing this kind of thing since I was kid laying in my parents backyard looking up at the fluffy clouds, wondering what my life might be like.  I'm a dreamer.  I like to create plans and put them into action.  I've been able to experience a lot of really cool things that way. 

One of our readings this week was a transcript of Randy Pausch's "Last Lecture: Really Achieving your Childhood Dreams." Randy was a dreamer too.  Even though his life was cut short due to cancer, he lived a remarkable life as a husband, father and computer science professor and accomplished an impressive list of seemingly unrelated childhood dreams. His dreams included everything from being in zero gravity, becoming a Disney Imagineer, writing an article for the World Book Encyclopedia and being the guy who can win the big stuffed animal prizes in the amusement park.  Wouldn't you know it, he crossed every single one of these items off his bucket list. He did it by being willing to go down unconventional paths to his dream.  When the normal paths didn't work, he tried alternate paths until he found one that did. That's tenacity. He had the dream in his mind and didn't ever let it go even though very real and logical obstacles stood in his way.  

We should all have dreams like that.  It doesn't have to be a dream to win some big award, make a lot of money or become a famous person.  It could simply be a dream to be the guy who can win all the big stuffed animals at the fair.  The point is not how impressive the dream is to society.  The point is to have something that drives you to work, and plan, and rework, and plan again and again until the dream has become a reality. Dreams like this give us meaning.  They build character and resilience and creativity. 

One of my childhood dreams that I have not yet realized, but have also not yet given up on is to be an author. As a kid I loved to write stories.  It's the dreamer in me. I know.  As I lay in my parent's back yard looking at the fluffy white clouds, I was also imagining and dreaming up all kinds characters, plot lines with awesome conflicts and resolutions, magical settings, the works.  I spent hours in my room writing stories just for fun. I have always wanted to be a published author.  I have participated in writing workshops and taken writing classes, but I have never submitted a single piece of writing to be published.  At least not yet.  That dream has never died though.  Life has taken me through many unexpected paths and while the time has not been yet, I believe it will come.  And it probably won't come through an easy path or the logical one that most would expect.  It will come through a wonderful set of coincidences that line up just right to make the dream come true.  That's how it happened for Randy and he was alert enough to his dreams and patient enough to seize them when the right set of coincidences came.

Hold on to your dreams.  Hold on to your values.  Be patient and have an open mind to the alternate paths that you stumble upon because the real dreams are never on the first path or maybe even the tenth.  The chance to accomplish your real dreams come when you are all jumbled up and just trusting in God that things will work out right.  God knows what your dreams are and he will orchestrate them in your life perfectly if you let him.  So follow the mixed up jumbled roads that don't seem to make sense to anyone else but you and the little inner voice that tells you to just keep going a little longer.  Your dreams and consequently your life of meaning is just around that unexpected corner.