A mother of a vivacious five-year-old just returned from a meeting of the National Organization for Women. Stirred by exciting dreams for the possibilities of womanhood, she asked her daughter what she wanted to be when she grew up. Little Lisa quickly answered, "A nurse."
There was a time when nursing was thought of as a woman’s profession and the answer somehow seemed not to satisfy. She had, after all, just returned from a NOW conference.
"You can be anything you want to be," she reminded her daughter. "You can be a lawyer, a surgeon, a banker, president of the country – you can be anything."
"Anything?" Lisa asked.
"Anything!" her mother smiled.
"I know," Lisa said. "I want to be a horse!"
Lisa’s dream may need some refinement, but there is plenty of time for that. When do we quit dreaming about the future? When do we resign ourselves to simply replaying dreams from the past?
Maybe her dream needs to mature a bit, but would you rather have the optimism of a five-year-old girl who wants to be a horse, or the pessimism of an adult who says in despair, "I can’t be anything at all"?
Teddy Roosevelt said, "Keep your eyes on the stars and your feet on the ground." I believe that is the way to make those dreams come true. It begins with looking up and dreaming something beautiful.
-- Steve Goodier
flickr.com/Jan De Bondt
