Every four years the process gets repeated over and over again. We watch captivated on TV as superbly trained and conditioned athletes pursue their Olympic dreams, dreams that they may have been nurturing since childhood! Because almost every Olympic quest, regardless of whether it ends in making the National Team and winning a medal, gets its’ start in the dreams and fantasies of a young child watching The Games on TV.
These dreamers think, “I’d like to do THAT when I grow up!” How cute! A six, seven or eight year old imagining the UNLIKELY and the IMPOSSIBLE! You could call these silly little kids UNREALISTIC. You could call them IMMATURE and NIAVE. You could certainly call them FAR OUT! And in all cases you’d be right! However, it doesn’t really matter what YOU call them because it’s not YOUR dream and it’s not in YOUR heart! It belongs to THEM and eventually some of these unrealistic, immature dreams of childhood grow up to become real-life OLYMPIANS!
As an adult, don’t ever doubt the power of a child’s imagination! Don’t ever burden a young child with the “realistic” arguments about why it will be impossible for them to accomplish something so fantastic! Do not burden them with YOUR limitations! Do not distract them with YOUR fears. Let your kids have their dreams! Children are meant to FLY! No one really knows what is in the heart of the dreamer, and it’s what’s in the heart that REALLY COUNTS! It’s what’s in their heart that allows them to soar.
