PERCEPTIONS: Sweet dreams
On Christmas Eve, the children are nestled all snug in their beds with visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads. On New Year’s Eve, I join them.
The new year, 2013, will be my year. I will get in shape. I will master a second language. I will read War and Peace. I will be a better human being.
The dream of success is a five-star hotel where I can check in and lounge around as long as I please. The rooms are free and the luxuries are limited only by my imagination. I have spent way too much of my life checked into that hotel – or should I say, checked out.
The road to success is starkly different. The moment my feet touch the road to success, my dreams go up in a puff of smoke. I dream of eating healthier but the moment I deny myself a second donut I feel frustrated. I dream of being physically fit but exercise makes my muscles sore. I dream of learning Spanish but studying stresses my brain. Suddenly, “no gain” seems a small price to pay for “no pain.”
We consider the great people of history to be visionary dreamers. The truth is, dreamers are a dime a dozen. The people who make a difference in this world are the stone cold pragmatists, people who put their feet to the road and walk.
Alexander the Great did not just dream of a Greek world; he assembled an army. Mother Teresa did not just dream of helping the poor; she moved to the slums of Calcutta. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech is famous, not just because it was a good speech, but because it was the road he traveled.
In the end, the dream of success is failure. The road to success is success.
