You Get To Choose How Your Dream Will Crush You

and other true things I'd say to a room full of fourth graders

Before I was a writer & editor, I was an elementary classroom teacher for nine years. Here’s what I would most want to say to my first class of students if I could go back today and gather them on the rug and tell them the true things they needed to hear most.

If I could go back to the fourth grade classroom…

…where I used to have a poster hanging on the wall that said, “Climb high. Climb far. Your goal, the sky. Your aim, the stars,” I would pull it down from the wall and bring it to the rug and tell my students to gather round.

I would huddle them closely and whisper so they knew I was about to impart a secret; so they’d know I was about to tell them the kinds of things other adults wouldn’t say. It would be okay to do this—kids can stomach the truth in a way adults can not.

Then I would tell them everything I know about dreams, as clearly and compassionately and truthfully as I could. I would say:

“You have been told that dreams are shimmering and buoyant and grand. And sometimes, they are. Sometimes they are the thing that you will remember when you wake up in the morning, and even though you have a long hard day ahead, you will find the courage to put your feet on the floor because you know there is a dream tucked in there somewhere, woven into the fabrics of your necessary duties. Sometimes it will be the only thing that feels worth getting out of bed for.

But I want to tell you that a dream will also crush you, in one way or another. It will always happen, but you get to choose the way it will crush you. This part is very important, so stop poking your neighbor, Jimmy, and listen:

If you allow a dream to be the thing that decides who you are, when your dream comes true you will become very afraid of losing it. Your whole life will become about holding onto that dream, and you will spend your time scared and squeezing your fists. It will be very tiring, and then it won’t feel fun and buoyant and sparkly anymore. It will feel like grueling work that you don’t want.

And then—if you’ve allowed that dream to tell you who you are—when you lose it, or when someone tells you ‘no,’ you will be so terribly defeated that it will be hard to get out of bed all over again. You will wonder why you are here and if your life matters. You will even wonder if you matter, without that dream telling you so.

I am telling you right now: you matter without that dream.

Say it. Say, “I matter because I am me, that’s why.”

Here is where I get would get teared up, because here is the hard-won secret that I will want them to understand more than anything in the world.

Now. There is another way that your dream can crush you, and it’s not necessarily easier or more fun, but at the end of being crushed this way, you will be stronger and braver than when you started. This is how it works:

Instead of squeezing your hand around a dream, you have to hold it loosely, like a pet bird. You have to let it perch on you—if you try to squeeze it, you will break its bones and you won’t have a pet bird anymore.

See, you have to let your dream teach you. You have to forget about trying to be in control all the time. That’s called learning to surrender, which can feel a lot like being crushed at first. It’s hard not to be in charge of everything, but once you learn to give that up, it actually feels a lot like freedom. And freedom is really good for dreaming.

Also, you have to pay attention to what works well while you’re reaching for those stars, but even more importantly, you have to listen to what doesn’t work. You will fail a lot of times. (But you will get it right sometimes too!) Instead of letting those failures destroy you, you can let them humble you. Becoming humble is a type of crushing. But I want you to remember this: Everyone will teach you to be proud, but they forget that there is a lot of strength and value in being humble. Being humble helps you be curious. Being humble helps you work with others. Being humble helps you think wide-open thoughts.

Finally, I want you to pay attention to the story that is happening inside you as you dream.

Sure, there is one story of your life happening outside—those are the things that everyone can see, like where you go to school, who’s in your family, and what you did last weekend. But there’s an even more interesting story happening inside of you, and you’re the only one who can see it.

Don’t miss it! If you pay careful attention, you will notice that as you dream, you are changing. You are being pressed and molded and, little by little, you are becoming strong and brave and flexible. Over time, you will notice that you are not the same as when you started this whole dreaming thing.

And guys? This is what I wanted you to know most about dreaming. That when we dream, we’re often thinking about a product at the end, like a book that we’ve written or a business that we’ve built or a play that we’ve starred in. And it’s okay to want those things. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned about dreaming is this:

If you do it the right way, at the end it doesn’t matter so much what the product is, because you’ll be so strong and brave and flexible and curious by that time that you’ll see the beauty in any outcome.

Because, guess what? It was never about the dream. It was always about the dreamer. You are the product. You are the beauty.”

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Some weeks nothing happens, and other weeks I get to collaborate with a lot of beautiful souls all at once. Last week was one of those weeks—I would love for you to check out these wonderful people and the work we did together:

1. Emily Curzon
   has a podcast called “We Have This Hope,” and we got together and talked about DELIGHT and staying soft in a calloused world. I shared the story of how I made the transition from teaching to full-time editor/writer and where God has been in all of that. You can listen here.

2. Stephanie Petters
   has a gorgeous publication called “Writing in the Roots,” and she graciously invited me to be a featured poet there. I shared a poem that I’ve only ever SPOKEN (never published!) called “Lessons from a Tree.” You can read it here.

3. I interviewed my new friend

   Chris Wheeler
   of “The Tethered Letters” last week on The Second Cup Show. Chris’ perspective on living with our hands and feet on/in the ground (yes, the actual physical EARTH) is soulful, inspiring, and rich. I hope you’ll listen to what he has to say. I felt changed after this conversation. You can listen by clicking below.