Dr. Philip Greenwood

I was woke up early one morning not too long ago and heard Olivia, my 8-year-old daughter, quietly crying in her room. I went in to see what was wrong and, through her little sobs, she said, “I had a dream.” I asked her, “Was it a scary dream?” And she answered, “No, I dreamed I could fly.” “Well that actually sounds pretty fun” I replied. To which she said (between sobs), “No, because when I woke up I was jumping on the bed and it didn’t work!”

We’ve all heard the advice to follow your dreams. But somewhere along the way most people have stopped following their dreams because when they got up the next morning they jumped on the bed and came right back to earth. Olivia had no idea how close her dreams were to becoming reality. She had a vision, but she didn’t have the right plan. Just jumping on the bed was just wishful thinking. But two other ingredients made her dream come true. One is knowing the right person – in this case here daddy – to help her. Relationships in life are absolutely essential for all success. Sometimes you’ve got to do it on your own, but you can’t do it alone. And two – she needed access to the right knowledge or technology. So on the afternoon of her 9th birthday I took her for a drive during which I continually hedged on her question of, “Where are we going?”

As we pulled up to the Indoor Skydiving facility in Perris, CA she got really excited and needless to say, after a very short learning curve, we both had an awesome time. In fact, I think I got the best thanks a dad could ever get after we were finished when Olivia said, “This is the best day of my life!… Can we do this every month?” (That’s Olivia and me in the pics above).

Have dreams and pursue those dreams. People don’t usually reach the end of their life and say, “I’m sure glad I played it safe. Now I can die in peace.” More often they say, “I wish I would have taken more chances. I wish I would have followed my passion!” Whatever it is, the knowledge is out there. And there is someone out there, even if it isn’t your daddy, that can help you get there.

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 20th, 2010 at 7:42 pm and is filed under Living With Imagination. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.