A world without dreamers.

*I'm not certain when I wrote this, all I know is that it never posted. I will try to figure it out and make sure it goes in the correct place. 

  "A dream is a wish your heart makes." ~ Walt Disney?

Today, I was asked what I plan to do when I graduate. It's a fair question; I should be finished with my graduate degree by this May and ready to "face the world." As this is my third graduation, it's not the first time I've heard that question. And I can guarantee it won't be the last.

My response was, much like it usually is, I'm not really sure. The looks I get when I answer are always, well, interesting. It's not that folks are disappointed, it just seems that this is never what they expect. I guess they suppose that a master's degree would insure me a job at some major broadcast corporation. Or some equivalent.  And it might, if that's where I wanted to go.

But the reality is, I haven't thought beyond school. I've been in school for most of my life and can't possibly remember a time before I had school. So the idea of being out is one that I'm still adjusting to.

Also, as much as I love writing (and I do, I've just been slipping in it lately), I'm not sure I love the other aspects of journalism. Although I haven't worked at the stations, I've studied the concepts, structures, influences on society, influences by society, the major players, and so much more. All this studying about journalism has shown me a side that I would have preferred not see.

I'm such a dreamer and optimist, that learning these realities has given me some cause for concern.

And it's also stunted my dreaming.

Growing up, I wanted to be a teacher, mostly because my family largely consisted of teachers or former teachers. Once upon a time, I wanted to be an architect, so I could build things. I loved creating blueprints for buildings. Oddly enough, at the same time, I wanted to be a vet, so I was designing my own vet office in the back of a composition notebook. Then, I fell in love with traveling.

At some point, late high school or early college, my brother and I said we wanted to write our own travel book. Mostly because I had a knack for writing, we both loved to travel, and he was excellent at making friends and making a way...socialization has never been my strong point.

But those dreams all changed. And I eventually felt that I had quit dreaming. I guess I could blame growing up or something, but that seems like a cop-out. I think it really had something to do with the realities of life. My responsibilities had changed and I just let my dreams fall to the back.

It seems that I'm not the only one who isn't dreaming the big dreams anymore. When I was in undergrad, my editor shared with me this article she had read. In it, they had interviewed little kids about what they wanted to be when they grew up. These kids were so serious in their answers.

Some said the general stuff that youngsters say: firefighter, teacher, etc. But so many of these kids were giving very serious answers. Things that Kaitlin and I found mind-boggling. We both wondered, 'when did kids grow up so quickly?' Here we were, two college students who were completely unable to figure out what we wanted to do with our lives, when these six, seven, and eight year old children already knew. And they weren't just messing around.

I have to wonder if this is a reflection on our culture. Two possible reasons come to mind. A: These kids are growing up in a time that is economically tough. They are learning the serious lessons of life at far too young an age, simply because they are living these lessons. Maybe this is how the children who grew up in the Great Depression saw life.

The second reason I could guess, or B, would be that children around the world are being forced to grow up and grow smart very quickly. The world is so interconnected that we are all competing to be on top. The powers-that-be got rather panicky a few years back when they realized how far behind in education our children were compared to children in some other countries.

I'm not sure which answer it is, if either, but I find it sad. Children are unable to be children. I do believe firmly that kids should know things about life and be taught things about the world. But I also believe that somewhere along the way, we have to remember that they are just children. And we have to teach them to dream.

That's the point of the "American Dream." I know it seems that the picturesque version is the house in the suburbs with the white picket fence, 2.5 kids, a minivan or equivalent in the driveway, and a dog named Fido, but I refuse to believe that this was original meaning for the phrase.

Part of the beauty of a dream is that it is your own. To make it what you will. And when you determine your dream, you have the right to pursue it. That is the true "American Dream" that we've lost somewhere along the way. And, unfortunately, there are too many folks now that have completely lost their ability to dream. The saddest part is how young the non-dreamers are getting to be.

What scares me about the lack of non-dreamers is this: without those folks dreaming up those fantastical things, we wouldn't have those folks (often the same ones) creating and doing such fantastical things. If it weren't for a dream, there'd be so many things that didn't exist, from Mac computers to yo-yos.

Everything starts with a dream, which then materializes into a reality. We must never have a world without dreamers. That would be a sad, sad place, indeed.