My older daughter is nine years old. She has soft brown eyes and long, wavy hair that takes patient brushing each morning. She has no idea how beautiful she is, and I secretly love that about her. She is still in that wonderfully innocent time of childhood where her imagination has not been stifled by the adult world. She has a quiet, creative spirit. Her days at home are filled with building cubbies and fairy gardens outside, reading books and painting glorious scenes from her imaginings.
What do you want to be when you grow up?
She looks with her serious brown eyes. I don’t know yet. A writer, an artist, a teacher.
Do you remember being asked this question? We rejoice when young children express their dreams. I want to be a ballerina. I want to invent flying machines. Travel the world. Explore new lands. Fly to the moon. We smile to ourselves and remember the days when we had such dreams.
But the child gets older.
Life starts getting serious.
What we once greeted with enthusiasm is met with a wry smile. Nobody can make a living doing that. You’ll never be good enough to do that professionally. You’ll need something more stable to fall back on.
Slowly, the grown-up world takes over and the dream fades.
The intention is good. Of course, we want our children to be able to support themselves. To be stable, secure.
But the human spirit also needs passion and creativity. Our souls crave some way to express themselves. We are spiritual creatures, not just physical beings.
Do you have a childhood dream that you laid aside as adulthood and responsibility took over? Do you long for a way to express yourself?
I genuinely believe that it is never too late. I am so inspired in my job seeing people of all ages picking up old dreams, or discovering new ones, and finding that spark again. It may be as huge as starting a whole new career or business. It may be trying a new class, a new hobby, travel plans, a new pet, writing, drawing, knitting, photography, singing or yoga.
It is never too late to start dreaming again.
For me, it was starting a blog and remembering a time as a child when I had dreamed of being a writer.
If you have a small whisper inside you, an old dream, a yearning – I hope you can find a way to set it free once more.
It may be starting small, but that is okay.
Dreams will look different with jobs and mortgages and children to take care of. But that doesn’t mean we need to let them go forever.
Our children are watching us all the time. If we want them to dream, to find joy and passion in their lives, we need to show them that it matters.
This blog post was first published on my original website, drdeborahcarrington.com
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