Follow Your Dreams and Passions

 I am a huge proponent of pursuing your dreams and passions with all you’ve got. I believe we all have strong desires to do fun, meaningful and important things. I believe that the nagging ones we have that really stir us are not to be ignored.  That you have that strong nagging desire for a reason and it is best you answer the call. Trust me, it is within you to do so even if it seems a stretch, that is why you have the call. I also know that when we  do pursue the desires and  ideas we are most passionate about and work to achieve our most meaningful goals we are the happiest and most fulfilled. On the contrary when we do not we can become resentful,  bored and deeply dissatisfied.

This is a belief I have always had and cherished. As a result  I have always admired people that live their lives this way.

My daughter Jessica is one of the people I admire for this very reason. She is currently preparing to leave for her Peace Corps service in Costa Rica on July 8. Jessica has had a call to serve others for many years and has logged many hours volunteering locally in a variety of programs from crisis intervention to teaching ESL.

Our family has always valued service and volunteering as well as an interest in people and other cultures. I clearly recall the article she read on the horrific ordeal of rape victims in Darfur when she was about 15 years old and her telling me she wanted to go there to do something to help. Since then she has not wavered in her commitment to serve in a 3rd world country. It has been a long process to get accepted to serve in The U.S. Peace Corps after graduating college but we are now counting down the days as she prepares to depart for the next 27 months as a volunteer working with youth services in  rural Costa Rica.

My three children all share my passion for following dreams and achieving goals and I admire them all for it. We are a close family and spend a lot of time together. Jessica will be greatly missed but at the same time we share her excitment and look forward to the life changing experience she will have and the connection and impact she will make there.

All of us have dreams, passions and desires. Sometimes life gets in the way and we can lose track of them even forgetting them at times. But if we listen carefully they remain. They can be the source of restlessness or discontent a nagging feeling something is missing or a loud siren alerting us it is time to take action.

I believe that those of us bold enough to  follow these calls are richly rewarded and all of us are better for it as well.

“There is nothing capricious in nature and the implanting of a desire indicates that its gratification is in the constitution of the creature that feel it” Ralph Waldo Emerson

“If one advances confidently in the direction of one’s dreams, and endeavors to live the life which one has imagined, one will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” Henry David Thoreau