Have a dream

As I watched a number of Americans receive their gold medals my thoughts went back to that wonderful Broadway Musical South Pacific and to a song sung by that big ole tough woman they called Bloody Mary and the lines of that song that went “You’ve got to have a dream. If you don’t have a dream. How you gonna make that dream come true.”

When I was younger I had a list of dreams. When I got older I even started a Bucket List but somehow, along the way I misplaced that list. One time in my career I realized that I had made presentations in a whole lot of our 50 United States.  It took me a while to dig around in my memory and in my files but in time I wrote down occasions where I had made presentations in 48 states.  Of course I wrote down the names of those two remaining states which were Hawaii and Alaska.  I started promoting my services to some Associations in Hawaii and Alaska. In time I booked the Hawaii Safety Council’s annual meeting, spoke for them, then booked it again and over the years made presentations for the U.S.Navy at Pearl Harbor, then the Marines booked me. In Alaska I first booked their Safety Council and they had me back twice more. I worked there for a week another time for BP Amoco at Prudhoe Bay and so yes, I have made presentations in all 50 of these United States.  If I hadn’t set those specific dreams and goals I doubt that I could make that claim.

What about you?  And what can we bring home from the Olympics in Rio that might make our lives a little better?  What specific goals might we set?  If you just search Google and Goal Setting you can get a world of instant advice.

So often when I am writing and I ask that question, “What about you?” I am reminded that when I point my index finger at someone I look down at my hand and three fingers are pointing straight at me. And so I must now ask the question, “What about me?” What are my dreams going to be; what goal will I set, and when will I begin?  And if I can’t locate that old bucket list when why don’t I start a new one?

Bloody Mary was a wise old woman. “We’ve got to have a dream. If we don’t have a dream,  how we gonna make that dream come true.?”