Everybody's Got to Have a Dream



  Everybody's Got to Have a Dream

  Copyright 2013 by Marvin K. Perkins

  Everybody's Got to Have a Dream

  Preface

  It is good to be a dreamer as long as you are not taking a nap while you're doing it. Dreams without action are useless; they can't come true on their own. They are simply manifestations of situations we envisioned in a waking state, they don't have meaning in and of themselves. Dreams associated with the state of sleep referred to as R.E.M. are one type not to be confused with the kind of dreams where we have great hope for a bright future. I love the song lyric that says: “My future's so bright I've gotta wear shades”. We should be that optimistic about our own futures, but we should temper that optimism with just a dash of realism. And who am I to be giving you advice about your dreams, nobody, but a fellow dreamer wishing to share some things that I have learned about dreams and dreamers through my sixty two years of life on this earth. You can keep and sweep, as it were, anything you read here. And if you don't have a dream get one. Work at it every day and try to make it a reality.

  My Story

  Of course I have a story, I'm a story teller. But this story is for real. I've had many dreams in my life. In fact I have dreams as I write these words and believe me I do work toward my dream every day. Will it ever become reality? I certainly hope so.

  My first dreams started when I was just a little boy. It is hard for me to believe I was ever a young boy, it was so many years ago. But like all boys of my generation, we dreamed of being cowboys, policemen, firemen or in some cases whatever our dads did for a living. Me, I was stuck on the cowboy thing. Did that mean I really thought I was going to some day wear a big hat and cowboy boots and ride the range tending cattle? Hardly, I was just enamored with the mystique of being a cowboy. It was one of those daydreams I referred to earlier.

  The first real dream I had was when I was around ten years old. I wanted more than anything in the world to be a major league baseball pitcher. Was this a daydream or a real dream? It was both I'll say. I did daydream about pitching in the big leagues when I should have been doing my homework, but it was more than that.

  I was actually a pitcher on the church's little league team. Not only did I practice with the team, I also practiced at home on my own. I had an old catcher's mitt hung on the fence in our back yard. I paced off the distance it was between the pitcher's mound and home plate on the baseball diamond and marked me a spot on the ground. I would throw at that catcher's mitt for hours some days. The results were amazing when it came to my control. I developed four pitches over the next two years, a fast ball, curve, slider and a changeup.

  I set a goal for myself, it just wasn't a daydream. I worked very hard on a daily basis to achieve that goal. It was an attainable goal or at least one that was in the realm of possibilities. I will discuss these two points at length later on. Attaining my dream was a mindset and I took it very seriously, but like many dreams that we have through the years it faded, I lost my drive and desire and the dream slipped away from me, lost and forgotten. This of course happens, but you don't stop dreaming because one dream doesn't become reality, you get another one.

  At that point I was around sixteen years old, when my second big dream came to fruition .This was the era of the British invasion, the Beatles, Stones, The Who, just to name a few. My next big passion was I wanted to be an awesome guitar player and play in a hit rock and roll band.

  This was a real dream which I actively pursued for a number of years. When I first started playing the guitar I practiced for hours until my fingers bled and were too sore to continue. I played in several bands through the years, most of them atrociously bad. And come to think of it so my my guitar playing. Try as best as I could I just sucked. I had a “tin “ ear as it was called. I couldn't distinguish high pitches from low ones. This ineptitude was problematic when it came to learning to play songs on the guitar by ear, which is what rock players do.

  Even though I was a terrible guitar player, it did open another door for me. My next dream was to be a hit songwriter. As before I pursued this dream with a passion for a couple of years, but its flame too burned out, leaving me dreamless.

  I started drinking way too much, smoking a lot of weed and basically lived to party. Along the way I got married, which turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me, and as a result of having a family to support I ended up joining the Navy at the age of 32. Even though this was not a dream, it too, as far as a career was concerned, was the best thing that ever happened to me. But I lacked that special dream, that passion, that goal for something special in my life. I call these the lost years, which lasted for around twenty years. I was in a dreamless state all these years, with no passion in my life. I wish I could have them back, but when you waste years of your life like I did, they are gone forever.

  Miraculously, the dream of being a songwriter was rekindled in the mid-nineties through the urging of my best friend Mike. I, again, worked very hard and long to be successful, but again, it just never happened. I wrote and co-wrote hundreds of songs, but they just weren't good enough. I think sometimes, I didn't pay a high enough price in time and money, but in the end I just wasn't good enough. I still daydream about being a hit songwriter, but I haven't written a song in years now.

  I am not where I want to be financially, but someday I still dream I will be able to make a living doing what I love.

  Write it Down

  I've told you about some of my dreams, now it's your turn. It all starts with discovering what your dream is going to be. Everyone has a different dream, but you have to pick one, or two possibly, but I wouldn't recommend any more than two, you don't won't to “bite off more than you can chew” as the old expression goes.

  Next I strongly recommend that you write that dream down and be specific. Such as owning your own home, becoming a millionaire or running a marathon. Visualization is a powerful tool and it helps you to focus on your dream, like a horse with blinders on as it were. Put a piece of paper with your dream on it in locations around your house or apartment, the bathroom, the refrigerator, even on the dash board in your car or your desk at work, if you have one. Your dream should be foremost on your mind as you go about your daily routine.

  Now that you have taken that all important first step, now it's time to get busy. Here comes the really hard part. You have identified your dream but now what? This can be a real problem, but it is all a part of the process. You can't sit on the couch and watch the boob tube and think your dreams are going to come true because now you know what your dream is, I wish it were that easy. If that's all you do, then, you are daydreaming like I mentioned earlier. Let's get to work.

  Make a Road Map

  When you start on a long trip the first thing you do is break out the old road map or now days punch in the address on your GPS. One way or the other you will find information as to how to get to your destination. You can easily get off track without your road map and be going in entirely wrong direction before you know it. Obviously begin where you are at currently and end where you would like to be, sounds simple. I wish I could tell you it was simple, but its not, it takes a lot of hard work.

  I mentioned two dreams earlier, run a marathon and own your own home, two dreams that actually came true for me. I do own my own home and I ran the L.A. Marathon at the age of 42 back in 1993. It was just something I wanted to do, a test of my will to accomplish a goal. I didn't just one day go out and just start running, even though I had been running shorter distances, the marathon is an entirely different matter. I did extensive research before I started my training to learn what the experts had to say, how they trained. “Runner's World”
Magazine was my Bible for quite a while before I even laced up my shoes to begin the quest to complete the marathon. A marathon is 26.2 miles in case you didn't know, so it is not something to be taken lightly. Finishing the distance is a much mental as physical I learned in my research and actually found to be true the day I completed the marathon.

  I trained very hard for several months, following a training program I found in my “Bible.” My goal was just to finish, however I did hope to finish with a somewhat respectable time. On race day I was extremely nervous, but confident because I knew I had trained according to the plan. It was difficult and I hit the “wall” at around eighteen miles but I persevered and finished with a respectful time of four hours and thirty minutes. I actually finished in the top third of the people that began the race, many of whom did not finish.

  As you can see I incorporated all the things I had mentioned earlier in making this dream a reality. I established a dream, I was specific, I had a goal or a road map, and it took me from where I was to where I wanted to be. All dreams are not this easy to develop a road map for, but the principle is the same.

  Nurture Your Dream Like A Child

  Your dream is your child, sounds silly I know but your dream can start out as a tiny sapling and grow into a mighty oak tree. It can start out as just a tiny little idea but through nurturing it can grow into a full blown reality. You must be willing to pay the price and work hard and don't give up on your road map until it seems as if no matter what you do it is just not going to happen.

  Don't be afraid to re-define your original dream if you find you have tried to achieve something that just wasn't possible for you at the time, maybe later. So you can tweak on it and modify it into something that you can achieve. Challenge yourself, but don't set a goal that is more or less impossible. Say your goal was to be a billionaire. After five years of beating your head against a stone wall you didn't have two nickels to rub together, probably you should re-define your objective. Maybe you could shoot for a job making $100,000 or maybe $75,000. You see where I'm going with this.

  So what I'm saying is know when to quit and get a new dream. There's no shame in throwing in the towel, if you've given it your best effort and it just ain't gonna happen. But just don't give up on your dream and be without a dream. Start the process all over again and maybe this time choose something more realistic and attainable from the very beginning.

  These are just a few of my thoughts about dreams and how to make them a reality. I hope anything I have said can be of some value to you. If you think the points I have made are useless to you, I appreciate you taking the time to read my thoughts.