Take Back Your Life!

“You must go after your wish. As soon as you start to pursue a dream, your life wakes up and everything has meaning.” ~ Barbara Sher

Can you imagine a world where no one ever had a dream to achieve something great?

Most of what you see wouldn’t even exist.

Recently, I rewatched Flash Dance, an 1983 movie that got panned by critics but went on to be loved by the people, making it the third highest grossing film in 1983. When I first watched it I was enamored with the dancing. This time I was enamored with Alex’s dream process.

A welder by day, dancer in a club by night, Alex had a dream to attend the prestigious Pittsburgh Conservatory of Dance and Repertory. But didn’t really have the guts to apply, worried by her lack of formal training. Her boss turned boyfriend reads her the riot act when she whines about not being good enough to apply to the program.

“When you give up your dreams, you die, ” he says and walks away.

That riles her up to apply and, of course, she does the most amazing emotionally pumped up audition in the history of auditions. It’s so good, I’m not sure she even needs to attend the school anymore, but as the film fades to black, I presume she gets in and does.

We all seem to have dreams as children and some later as adults, but too many of us reject our own dreams as impossible, without even trying to achieve them.

I fell into that chasm for awhile myself.

It’s easy.

You stop believing in your own dream and so do your friends. You all end up living the life of quiet desperation Henry Thoreau warned us about 1885.

However, if you are lucky, something will reactivate your dream — at any age — and you will have a second or even third chance to pursue it.

No matter what anyone tells you, it is never too late to go after your dreams.

Stan Lee created his first comic at 39. Laura Ingalls Wilder published her first little house on the Prairie book at 65. Susan Boyle won Britain’s Got Talent at 47. Vera Wang entered the fashion design industry at 40. Julia Child didn’t have her first cookbook published until 50. Charles Darwin was 50 when he published On The Origin of the Species. Ray Kroc was 59 when he bought his first MacDonald’s. Grandma Moses started painting at 78. Gladys Burrill ran her first marathon at 86.

Thankfully, they didn’t listen to the naysayers who have given up on their own lives.

If something “lights you up,” do it. I can almost guarantee it will make all the difference in your life.

Start with baby steps and keep going … It will be the best of times, it will be the worst of times. At times you will want to give up. These are the times to steel yourself and keep going. Many people give up right before they achieve their dream. That is often the darkest of times.

Want to share your dreams? I find giving them voice can be a good way to get them rolling again. Add them below!

Muse Thanks, Giulietta

“The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.” ~ Michelangelo

Most of us are not encouraged to aim high in the life of our choosing.

For that matter, we aren’t encouraged to really aim anywhere at all despite that we keep hearing to live our best lives.

By the time you hear this edict, you’ve been trained to follow the beaten path of wherever society is going. Get onto that bandwagon, sagging as it is, and follow it wherever it heads. It can be confusing to get the mixed messages.

The few who pick their own place to aim and aim high can achieve all kinds of self-fulfilling fab things.

Every time I have aimed high, I achieved something I didn’t think possible.

Be it community projects or art or writing.

Over the summer I submitted my story to Psychology Today for possible publication in their Two-Minute Memoir column.

Two weeks later, they told me my story was being considered. A few weeks after that they told me I’d been selected. (more…)

“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.” ~ Winston Churchill

I stood up for myself as a child. For that bravery, I got tossed out of classrooms, told I asked too many questions, or sent to sit in the corner.

That skill was not and is still not wanted by society.

It interferes with the agenda of those in charge.

By high school, I had retreated into myself. It took many classes in assertiveness training, public speaking, theater and willful practice to restore my childhood courage.

This is what I discovered the second time around: As an adult, speaking up can be met with turned tables. Suddenly, you become framed as the problem.

Nice tactic to silence anyone with a different opinion.

Now, would that get me to zip it?

Nada.

No amount of having myself labelled the problem could be worse than sitting in a chair terrified to speak up.  (more…)