Motivational Monday: Dare To Dream

"Dare to dream, take it to the extreme. Let your heart and soul lead the way. Live, love seize the day and dare to dream, dare to dream, dare to dream." John Farnham

It is graduation season here in Jamaica and a very uplifting time of validation, dreams becoming realities and opportunity to measure achievements - some against all odds.  

Always moved by these inspirational stories, the journeys of some of the young ones have one common factor it seem - they all had big dreams.

Some people consider "dreaming" childish and a luxury. Too bad more people do not dreams like children as dreaming is not a luxury, affordable only to children, the wealthy and 'time wasters'. 

In my primary school years, at least once a year we were asked to write a composition on "What I want to be when I grow up." Thinking about it now that, I seldom wrote about the same vocation twice.  Why? Dreams change.  Other students in my year were a bit more consistent than I was.  Many of them who wanted to be Teachers, Police Officers, Farmers, Nurses and Pastors when they grew up, are today living their dreams. 

Our choices were greatly influenced by our environment.  My family had its share of Educators: Principals, Lecturers, Education Officers, etc.  When I graduated from high school, to appease my mother, I took the entrance examination for Teachers' College. My mother insisted that teaching is a noble and stable profession one that guarantees constant employment. That profession, however, was not on my DREAM list. 

Albeit it blurred, my dream was bigger. Today I teach through my living. An Educator nonetheless but my dream was to do something out of the ordinary, divert from the usual road; break a couple of 'glass ceilings.'

"Dream BIG! Don't let money or lack of it limit the size of your dream."

That is exactly what one of my role models, my brother, did the same year our late mother was diagnosed with cancer.  Oscar was just accepted into Medical School at the University of the West Indies when news of the diagnosis came. We all thought that his dream was shattered, including the local pastor's wife whose 'words of wisdom' would be exactly the challenge he needed. "Well Oscar," she said, "I guess you have to kiss your dream goodbye and go get a job to look after your sick mother." 

My mother, the faithful prayer warrior, was very upset when she heard this prophecy. She came back with one of her own: "Fi yuh DREAM is fi yuh only. Nobody can dream your DREAM! Go in God's name." At the time, I did not quite understand the wisdom of my mom's words until my brother left home with a bag full of faith, a heart set on achieving and the hope that some day he would make a difference. Oscar's DREAM did come through and continues to expand as one of his three children enrolled into Medical School last year.

"Don't try to stop me. Don't tell me I'm crazy. You are only wasting your breath. I am bound and determined to make it happen. It's just a matter of when." John Farnham

Dreams are not passing fantasies. They are real aspirations.  I have heard the saying "I am living dream," giving the impression that dreams are static.  Life is not and cannot remain static. Dreaming aids the "movement," the enlargement of your life. Any aspect of your life that is "holding pace," degenerating or plain dead is signal to you that complacency, mediocrity or nonchalant attitude is killing your dreaming.

Clara's Dreamer

Be childlike, waste some time and luxuriate in some dreams today! Oscar did, I followed and I am supporting my son's daily dreaming.  You can too - in your life and that of your child or the community's children!

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Clara Brown is an Insurance Executive and regular Guest Author to this blog. She lives in Kingston, Jamaica with her partner and their son who is constantly dreaming

Some Photo sources:
pinterest.com
clipartpanda.com

Step Out Of The Box And Imagine!

Clara Brown

"Thinking outside of the box" is a phrase that was made popular largely by management professionals. According to Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, this catchphrase was widely used throughout the 1970's and into the 1980's in the business environment, especially by the highly-paid management consultants.

Admittedly, I have this 'signage' as the screen-saver on my laptop.  However, having listened to the term being bandied about recently, I am taking a little time out to really examine its meaning and accuracy. 

My early conclusion is that there is nothing 'novel' about  "thinking outside of the box." - not in the 70's, 80's or now.

Image: history.howstuffworks.com

Our history books teaches us that the Spaniard, Christopher Columbus, 'discovered' parts of the New World in 1492.  He used limited and very unconventional, to his time, navigational ideas and skills to chart his course.  Columbus obviously was employing what management consultants centuries later tout as "out of the box thinking" to set sail. Despite the ridicule of many, he did not allow that to limit his capabilities or define his destiny.

As far as we know, Columbus knew of no "box."

Today, those subscribing to a box concept feel they require superb leadership, be extremely innovative and have excellent problem-solving skills to succeed. While these things are important, my thoughts on this led me to Deepak Chopra's provocative quote:

"Instead of thinking outside of the box, get rid of the box."

We meet situations in our daily lives that call for use of adjustments to conventional rules and norms. Sometimes, when you are losing at a game, you have to stop playing by those conventional rules and switch things up to change the outcome. In other words, get out of the box!

The thing about thinking out of the box is you have to first know that there is a box.  One my talents lies in finding and defining it, then jumping out of it to the solutions.  To my mind, the 'box' is a composite of all the rules and structures we are given to work with or live by.

Those who do not see a box, like Columbus, behave very differently. What we are called to do, as he did, is to use what we were born with in the first place - our imagination!

Christopher Columbus, my pick for the original "Thinking Out of the Box" practitioner, used his imagination and engaged his creativity to make history.

"Logic will take you from A to B. Imagination will take you anywhere." Albert Einstein

In hindsight, I now wonder why someone needed to ask me to think outside of the box? Was my imaging faculty asleep?

Imagination is the most powerful tool that all humans possess. We do not need to be told to think outside of the box.  Yes, at times we will need a little nudge here and a kick there to get our creativity in motion.  We are not always at the top of the creativity mountain as our minds do not have the capacity to necessarily come up with great ideas one after the other. Sometimes, it requires stepping away from the situation and the idea will come to us when least expected.

Our imagination is never lost. Contained or boxed maybe but always retrievable.  If there were no limitations or constraints in the first place and we had the freedom to think creatively, then there would have been no need for millionaire management consultants!

Image: weliveunbound.com

If our children are encouraged to use their imagination rather than our suffocating their creativity, we can look fowars to more thinking citizens around the world, greater tolerance among diverse communities and more vibrant industries and eco-friendly economies.

It seems that what is needed more than ever then is a return to Imagining! Would you agree?

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Do imagine and set sail today!