There is a major theme to 2012. It's been the year of the major purchase. There have been a couple of cool trips, and a few new toys, but one major purchase. It's been year of buying into the fact that you can make dreams a reality. My wife and I have two daughters, one who just turned 7 and one who will soon be 12. I realized sometime last year that one is old enough to do more adventurous things with and one will soon pretend I don't exist. So this is the prime time in the sense of doing things as a family. I am trying to find a way to the brakes on this part of our lives. It started in the house of mouse, where you were told you were where dreams come true. It was hard not to by into the message. Who would not want to believe, that all you had to do was dream it and it would become reality? If you can find a way to turn down the skeptimism and allow yourself to believe, that turns out to be the key. My past statements included: expect the worse, and hope for the best and you want be disappointed. That strategy helps dull the sting of an October playoff series loss, but is not one that is brimming with the power of optimism. Anyway I must have gotten pixie dust on my feet in Florida, because I started believing the hype and drinking the Mouse Kool-aid. Dreams can come true.
I have this life long quest for the voice or role model of a male influence. This partially stems from the fact that my life has been and continues to be filled with influence of women. I made deal with my oldest daughter when her sibling was due to be born at any moment, that if it was a girl I would get a dog to help even the score. Someone pointed out that said dog would probably be female too. I never ollected on that bet, because for one thing my daughter had a fear of dogs, and my fear it would be yet another player on the other team. This is a long complicated story, that can wait for another day. The point is the search for this voice landed me on The Opie and Anthony Radio show. One day the day the guest was Matt Paxton, one of the cleaning specialist off the TV show Hoarders, here is yet another male voice. I then began following his podcast: 5 Decisions Away, the theme of which is we are just 5 Decisions away from having everything in life we want or from pooping in a bucket and being homeless. I mixed this message along with the Mouse-aid, and it began sinking in. Matt talks about just chasing after your dreams and going all in on your dreams. If you believe in your dreams then you will adjust them and make them fit. We start out believing our lives are going to be linear, meaning we are going from point to point, step by step, in a straight line just liked we envision. Reality teaches us pretty quickly this straight line is actually pretty broken and nonlinear at all. We can either except this crooked path and run its course or we can grab the wheel and steer toward our goals. Here's where the 5 decisions come in. We can go for our dreams or follow lifes steam and end up out of focus and lost. Matt also shares an appreciation of The Avett Brothers, which helped sell me on his message as well. One of there lyrics says: "Decide what to be and go be it.". This is but one example of the kind of theme shared in their music and Matt's message, and both of these match the positively of the Mouse-aid.
This common theme of positivity and the family being in its wheelhouse, to use a baseball analogy, led me to believe dreams can come true. If you throw all you have into them and never give up, you will eventually wear down the negativity and you will be victorious. I have seen this happen, and have bought into this philosophy. Most importantly I have now vowed to sell this to those around me. Can you imagine the power of a 7 or 12 year old that thoroughly believes they can do whatever they target their energy upon? I guess the key part of the equation is the target itself, and equally important is the belief it can become reality. The key of selecting the target also lies within the understanding of yourself. I hope they can grasp the power of this message, while they have a majority of their path in front of them and not midway through their journey. I guess my new dream is to become a world class salesman.
