When I was a kid, like eight to ten years old, I wanted to play in the MLB. The Detroit Tigers were my team and I thought one day, I’ll be playing at Tiger Stadium! But I kind of sucked. So, that wasn’t going to happen!
I got a little bit older and my dream was to be a teacher. Now, for a teenage boy that seems like a weird dream. But, I grew up in a blue-collar city, and every day I actually walked past a GM factory on my way to school. In baseball when we hit a foul ball it would go into the GM factory parking lot. I was from a divorced family, so teachers played a big part in my life, and one in particular really got me to want to teach.
As a child, your dreams should be giant. You can do anything! And, if you’re fortunate enough to be raised by emotionally healthy people you are most likely told you can do anything.
Those giant dreams die fast.
Kids aren’t judged by their giant dreams. You can be a superhero or a princess or anything. We think it’s cute when kids are naive to the real world. At some point, usually in adolescence, we begin to understand that naive dreams get us laughed at. They become hard to hold onto. If you actually make it out of high school and still have your dreams, well you become a dreamer! You get labeled as artistic and your parents probably believe you’ll never “make it”.
Dreams go from being awesome to being you’re basically an idiot. Maybe we should get you tested. Are you on drugs? “Dear, I think he’s on drugs!” He says he wants to be a pop star!
The only way you can actually hold onto your dream is if you were actually super talented in something. He can hit the ball a mile! Okay, hold onto that dream of playing professional baseball, even when you’re 28 and making $18K a year playing in the minor leagues. Oh, she’s got a great voice, she won the talent competition at the Corn Fair 2016! Keep signing in those bars for $200 a night.
It seems like the dream equation is you have to be better than almost every single person around you at something = you can hold onto that dream. If you don’t have superior talent over the people in your immediate vicinity, go get a job at the Amazon warehouse. Having a dream is hard work!
I wanted to be a professional baseball player.
I then wanted to be a teacher.
I ended up being a recruiter.
What was your dream?
From the time I can remember, I wanted to be a nurse. My mom was and RN and was CEO of a growing Home Health agency when I was a kid and I wanted to be a nurse like my mom. I worked for my mom’s agency and in a nursing home in HS and college. I loved patient care as a CNA.
What I didn’t realized, was that I didn’t have to be an RN to be a CEO.
I got into the nursing program at the University of Evansville (Go Purple Aces) and got into the nursing classes my first quarter and clinicals in my second quarter. I HATED it. No pun intended, I did not have the patience for the care plans, dealing with the physicians and not having much actual patient care. What I loved about being a CNA was so different than being an RN.
My mom and dad realized I hated it and came down to take me to dinner (it was a 5 hour drive) to tell me they know I didn’t want to be a nurse, suggested I major in a business program and work in healthcare on the business side vs clinical side. I had no idea, in my young life, that this woudl be an option. My mom was a nurse who moved into the leadership role. I thought to be in leadership in healthcare, I had to be a nurse.
I’m so glad my parents intervened. I transferred to a state school, found the “Personnel Management” track and found my passion. And yes, I worked in healthcare for most of my career in HR and recruiting.
I wanted to feel safe. I know, not a big dream but for some kids that was all we could hope for.
Hi Tim,
I wrote about this back on FOT in one of my early posts:
At 12 I wanted to be the best left handed pitcher in Major League Baseball. Two lefty major league pitchers, Jerry Koosman (Mets World Series final winning pitcher in 1969) and Steve Carlton (Phillies Hall of Fame pitcher) were my heroes. At 17 I wanted to be a physical therapist. At 22 I was hoping to be the Director of Operations at Madison Square Garden…Well obviously, none of these aspirations came to pass. Although I do hold the wiffleball neighborhood record for most garage door broken windows in Jr. high school (17). I had a mean rising fastball.
Here is the whole post courtesy of FistfulofTalent:
https://fistfuloftalent.com/2017/04/pay-give-dreams.html
By the way,
Happy fathers DAY!!!!
Best,
M
First, I wanted to be a news anchor on TV. Then I wanted to be an actress on Broadway and a regular on SNL. I even met Adam Sandler once and got info on how to audition. Now I’m in HR and get to do fun videos from time to time, but I also used my acting background in a volunteer role with my kids’ school for a number of years to run their drama program. Time to find a new outlet to put that dream to work!
I wanted to be a comedian. I wanted to be on Carson and make people laugh.