What do you want to be when you grow up?
Dream Big!
Raise the bar.
Achieve your goals!
You should work hard for what you want.
Be patient it will come.
Do you want to be successful?
Congratulations!
Silence.
No one tells you what happens after you achieve the goal or see dreams come true.
After the lights and magic turn off, and the confetti falls, on New Years Eve in Times Square, city workers come through and clean it all up. You wouldn't even know one of the worlds biggest parties had happened their the night before. That is how it feels when you achieve certain life goals. The build up to get there is exciting, you have something to look forward to. But once you get there. Once the big moment happens after possible years of working and waiting. You finally made it.
"Now what?"
Well... no one actually says that to you. You feel like that, secretly... but the image of happily ever after is all people have for you. There are no more next steps or what happens when the confetti is done falling.
Real life. That is what happens. As a matter of fact. Such real life that you will begin to forget you can achieve different goals. You can still dream. You can still work and be patient for something totally different. But no one told you. No one told you that you could feel or do those things. People ask how things are... you respond. There is a tinge of sadness when you begin to think this thing you worked and longed for your whole life just remains one way. Almost as if your dreams just got turned off because you won the golden ticket young. Imagine being full of dreams and excitement only to achieve it and feel pressure to perform and no longer dream. Imagine Peter Pan growing up. Or Alice leaving Wonderland. Or Ariel on land forever. That is how it felt until one of our own shook the dust from my eyes.
"Now what? This wasn't the end, what else are you dreaming up?"
A great awakening I didn't even know I needed.
A sweet kid to remind me of my own dreams.
To shove me out of my own robotic trance.
To push me in a direction that makes me uncomfortable, but allows more growth.
I want to be bold again.
To write something down and work and wait for it.
To know that this isn't the end.
That this ebb and flow doesn't always mean forever.
Real life is not leaving me, but the dreams don't have to disappear either.
People forgot that we were not built to be managers or to-do list keepers.
We were built to experience the greatest versions of people.
So while my dreams are being cultivated and put into a thought, we ask each other
"Now what?" or "What's next?" we help each other feel the magic of confetti falling,
and then show up the next day to walk through the reality of what it means when the lights turn off and you're left to deal with all the new.
Somewhere in the midst of my darkness and his question I realized my new dream was to stand alongside peoples life marathons and cheer them on.
To offer water and a snack, maybe even a hug.
I think I am tired of the "what do you want to be when you grow up?" question.
I'm ready for people to ask who they want to be today.
