Oswald Letter

The Willingness to Dream

For a homework assignment, my youngest child had to find an inspirational quote that he liked and take it to school to share with the class. His choice was a quote that I had not heard before, but its message really struck me. I was impressed enough with his choice that I’d like to share it with you.

Happy are those who dream dreams and are ready to pay the price to make them come true.” — Leon J. Suenes

There’s a lot packed into this one quote. I love the fact that the first word in the quote is “happy.” It’s a simple word and a very natural emotion. Yet in today’s world, we move so fast, do we ever really take the time just to be happy? We’re e-mailing, texting, calling, Tweeting, running, chasing. Who has time to be happy? Or, I should say, who takes the time to be happy?

And while I’m at it, let me throw the 24-hour news cycle under the bus. How much does the constant news get in the way of people just being happy? I’d say a lot. Every day we are bombarded with around-the-clock bad news. We hear about wars, murders, poverty, and anything that might shock us enough to keep us from pressing the button on the remote. Enough already! How about some good news? How about some happy news?

The next part of the quote that struck me were the words “dream dreams.” People in this country have dared to dream, and it’s what has made our country great. Benjamin Franklin and the founding fathers had a dream of democracy. Abraham Lincoln had a dream to end slavery. Inventors like Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison were dreamers that still impact our lives more than 100 years later. Martin Luther King, Jr., may be the most famous American dreamer. Neil Armstrong and the other NASA astronauts also dared to dream. Our country has countless examples of people who dreamed dreams and changed the lives of countless others forever.

Encouraging, even challenging, people to dream dreams is a good thing. Thinking about what is possible instead of what’s impossible can make you happy. Imagining what might be achievable is what ultimately makes it happen. If you look at just the technological inventions of the past 20 years, they boggle the mind.  And with the speed of innovation increasing all the time, what we will achieve in the next decade will be incredible — because people are willing to dream dreams. Like Eleanor Roosevelt said, “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”

The last part of the quote is “pay the price to make them come true.” It’s a great reminder that it’s not enough just to dream dreams, it takes hard work to make those dreams come true. Look back at the list of dreamers above. Consider the amount of sacrifice on the parts of those people and others to make their dreams come true. The dreams of the founding fathers led to the Revolutionary War and much bloodshed, but it also gave us our freedom. Abraham Lincoln’s dream led to the Civil War and the loss of more American lives than any war before or since, but it also ended slavery. Bell and Edison worked tirelessly on their ideas and provided mankind with innovations that we’ve been building on ever since. Martin Luther King, Jr., gave his life for his dream of racial equality, and today we have an African-American president. There is always a price to dreaming dreams. The price may be hard work, disappointment, even life itself, but if the dream is big enough, important enough, then the sacrifice will be worth it in the end.

Like I said, there’s a lot packed into that one sentence my 12-year old picked to share with his classmates. There’s truth, a bit of a challenge, and maybe even a warning. But for those willing to dream dreams there’s happiness. And what more could any of us want?

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