Living the Dream

“What do you do when your real life exceeds your dreams?” Tom Grunnick (From the movie Broadcast News, 1987)

Living the Dream

“How did your meeting go with the CEO today?” I said through my telephone to Christina Johnson.

I made the call to Christina because I was excited to hear more about her success.  As a member of the global “product team” for a major corporation, she had discovered a mind-blowing problem.  It was an issue that had already cost her company more than four-million-dollars over the past six months alone.  So, the CEO of her company wanted to meet her personally, to find out how she had discovered this systems weakness.  It was an exciting moment in Christina’s career!

“It went well.”  She responded with uncertainty.  “I didn’t answer her questions as well as I should have.  I could have done better!”

“Wait a minute!” Came out of my mouth immediately.  “I’m sure you did just fine.”

“I’m just always looking to improve, to see what I can be doing better.”  She continued.

“But, you need to give yourself a chance to celebrate your success!”  I suggested.

“When you started with the company in a warehouse out, far away from corporate headquarters did you ever dream of having the CEO ask you to personally come to advise her?  Not only have you saved your company millions of dollars, you’ve grown into someone who is highly respected and admired!  You found something that thousands of others didn’t!”

“When I started,” She answered, “I thought that perhaps I could grow to become the manager of the warehouse where I worked.  I never dreamed I’d ever be in my current position. I didn’t even know it existed!  I’ve never thought about that.  Until now.”

“Living the Dream.”  I robotically heard inside my head; thinking of the thousands of times my acquaintances had responded, in this way, when asked how they were doing.  It’s a sardonic way of telling the person making the query that they are simply getting by and working toward finding success.  Which sparked another memory of a statement made by the fictional character Tom Grunnick from the 1987 movie, Broadcast News.

“What do you do when your real life exceeds your dreams?”

“What do you do when your real life exceeds your dreams?” I queried internally, again, during the silent pause Christina and I were experiencing during that moment of inaudible assessment.

Breaking the silence, I said, “Take time to really savor this experience!  Relish it!  Recognize it for what it is.  Your life exceeding your dreams!”

We are living finite lives.  Not one of us will live forever.  Wouldn’t it be a shame to let our personal miracles, living our dreams, pass by without even the slightest acknowledgement, appreciation, or cherishing a sense of accomplishment?

Dreaming is not uncommon.

Living your dream is uncommon.

“What do you do when your real life exceeds your dreams?”

Savor this experience!  Relish it!  Recognize it for what it is; living your dream!