Chase Your Dreams

I was struck by several things that I learned and read this week.  First, I loved the video we had the opportunity of watching on treating life like an experiment.  I found this video to be very inspiring to me and helped me to see one of my major flaws.  I am terrified of failure.  I want to do everything right, and everyone to love me.  I know that this is not a realistic desire, and I am working on conquering it.  I had not thought of my ability to think through things logically and rationally as a tool to overcome this weakness.  I need to be willing to fail, so that I have experiences that I can learn from.  It’s these experiences that help us improve and learn.  At work, I learn from my mistakes all the time, but not without having frustration first for making those mistakes.  Going forward, I will strive to think of those mistakes as a natural part of the learning process, and that I learned the way to not do something.

I also found myself inspired and uplifted by Randy Pausch.  He was so full of life, energy and joy, despite his staring death in the face.  As I listened and read about his experiences, I realized that I had a lot that I could learn from him.  First, it’s ok to dream, and go after your dreams.  If you are willing to put the work into going after your dreams, they are achievable.  My dream is to become the CFO of a company.  I know that if I can keep my focus and work toward that dream, I can achieve it.  The second thing that struck me about Mr. Pausch is how at peace he was with his death.  I could tell that he had led a full life and did not have the regret of not accomplishing enough.  I pray that when I reach the end of my time here on earth, I will be able to look back on my life and have no regrets for the dreams I did not chase.