The Future Belongs to Dreamers

"When you have dreams and can see hope in the future it makes your current situation, of walking through all the poo, bearable."

• Nelson Brill
  

The Future Belongs to Dreamers

"Sometimes we forget what it was like to be freshly graduated from high school." Nelson said to our friend Stacey.

Stacey is twenty-eight with five kids and a husband. We were talking with her because she was at the end of her rope. They have over seventy thousand dollars of college debt and they're making eighteen thousand dollars per year. To try to make ends meet they've moved in with Stacey's parents and she and her family are living in two bedrooms. She called us because she could see no hope.

I could feel her despair throughout my body because I remember having such feelings not more than three years ago. There's nothing worse than being crushed by a complete lack of hope!

"Sometimes you can't chop the wood because you're too deep in the forest." Nelson said to break the intensity. "You need to just pretend for a minute." Then he broke the imagining down into four steps for her.

First, remember what you felt like when you had just graduated from high school? Forget all the current circumstances. Remember hope!

Second, begin to allow your dreams to come rushing back to you. Let them fill your heart and allow the dreams rush over the top of your heart like lava from an erupting volcano. Then let the feelings stay warm in your chest as if the lava hardens to reside there and keep your dream warm and safe. Give your dreams the strength of rock.

Third, think about small steps you can take every day to make your dream become reality. Then take at least one little step daily. Keep your dream burning and radiating to affect your life!

Finally, keep your dream animated by staying focused on it. "When you have dreams and can see hope in the future it makes your current situation, of walking through all the poo, bearable." See the future as if it's today.

I sat mesmerized, as my mind transported me back in time to three years ago. I traced Nelson's steps over those years and then felt a deep gasp force itself through my gullet. He was right!

"Stacey." I said. "You can do this! I know you can. Those same steps have worked for me!"

If these steps can work for me, they will work for you as well. Make sure you take a little time each day to remember your dreams and then go to work to make them real. Let today be what it is. The future belongs to those of us who can still dream!