Dreamers

“Status Quo is just a Latin phrase describing the mess we are in.”

Are you inclined to think about how things could be or ought to be or do you more often bemoan the way they really are? A dreamer should be a person who wants to be a difference-maker. They are not content just to identify the problem; they want to help fix it and make the world a better place.

There is a fine balance between being a dreamer and just being discontent with our circumstances. It is possible to make yourself miserable by finding something wrong with everything that happens ... and that is not dreaming; it’s complaining! A complainer is selfish and worried about themselves ahead of everyone else.

Most dreamers never get engaged in problem-solving. They dream about the way things should be but they cannot connect the dots in a constructive manner and just leave us all dissatisfied and ill at ease with the status quo. A lot of news and particularly political analysts are this type of dreamers; we typically call them idealists or even critics. They are people who are disconnected from reality and can only find fault and never seem to know what the solution is.

So we have dreamers who are self-centered, dreamers who are just critics or complainers and dreamers who have no answers. Let me propose another kind of dreamer that we should all seek to become. Let’s be dreamers who are change-agents. Let’s strive to spend as much time on problem-solving as we spend on identifying the problem. Or if we don’t have enough good ideas let’s try to partner with someone who does, instead of providing just half the formula and frustrating everyone around us.

I love dreamers and want to be classified as a visionary person myself. But let’s not be satisfied with just half the formula and end up pointing out the obvious and failing to provide what’s needed most – solutions. That will separate you from all the rest and confirm your right to be a dreamer!

“All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.” ~ T.E. Lawrence

Mistakes

“We made too many wrong mistakes.” ~ Yogi Berra

My life has been plagued with all kinds of miscues and errors in judgment. After almost 60 years on the planet, I would like to think I am getting smarter and that my experience would count for more, but surprisingly it doesn't seem to work that way as often as it should. How are you doing in that department? It’s not that I don’t know what to do as much as failing in the application of my insight. For example, I have always been a kidder and liked to laugh. As a young man this trait often led me into trouble but it also made me the life of the party. On more than one occasion I remember coming home after being with a group of friends and thinking that I had made a fool out of myself by all that I had said. Other times my embarrassment was just a result of a miscalculation in human relations or perhaps insensitivity to someone’s feelings.

I don’t remember ever going out to intentionally hurt anyone or to be mean just for the sake of it. Introspection has been a habit for me. That’s where the lessons come in. After the dust has settled I usually evaluate what has happened and how I could correct it next time. But that doesn't erase the mistake. Some of my mistakes still burn in my heart even years afterward.

It’s not always about relationships or social skills; sometimes my mistakes have to do with money or my job or just priorities. Let’s face it – no one is perfect and mistakes happen. The more I attempt to do, the more mistakes I make. But here is the good news: we are not judged by our inconsistencies but by our consistencies. Mistakes are a part of life but so is forgiveness and redemption.

My mistakes have made me more tender to others and deepened me more than any other thing in my life. So I have become philosophical about my mistakes and learned to embrace them. My scars are actually medals of honor and badges of battles lost and won – all part of the story called my life. I’m not proud of my failures but I value them as part of the process making me into the man I am becoming. There is one mistake I hope I am never guilty of committing; not profiting from my mistakes and allowing them to make me into a better person.

“Mistakes are always forgivable, if one has the courage to admit them.” ~ Bruce Lee