What would you fight for? It’s not just a rhetorical question, or a 60-second infomercial, posed by my Alma Mater during football season on a typical Saturday afternoon. It’s meant to challenge our response to the unmet needs in our neighborhood, our nation, and around the world. What is it that pulls at your heart-strings that would get you to respond to this call to action?
Do you dream as big as you once did? Of sailing around the world, of finding a cure for cancer or of writing the next great novel? Or are your dreams getting smaller and now miniaturized versions of those from the past? Even worse did your dreams become a casualty of seeing the world as it really is? The sad reality is that dreams die every day, and with their passing comes anguish and a sense of despair. Well, there is hope! That despair can be replaced with a sense of purpose and renewed passion.
Most people never chase their dreams and even fewer dare speak of them. We may share them with those closest to us, but to pursue them, that’s different. Pursuit is an action that is public nature, open to the scrutiny of others. Most of us would prefer to hold our cards close to us out of fear of the unknown, fear of rejection or, even in a strange way, fear of success. It’s important to keep our dreams alive because they are unique to us and they are part of us. And if we allow a dream to die, a part of us will die with it. A dream will never die in silence. What can we do to keep our dreams alive?
A lofty goal, who could argue! This year, I resolve to advance the message, one day at a time, that our lives can be exceptional. Done! Ambiguous enough to give me a compelling reason to get out of bed each day yet it leaves ample space for repentance in the case of failure. Exceptional at what? I have just given myself permission to “turn pro” at eating ice cream or become more resourceful in avoiding exercise, in the theme of time management, allowing me to forego the need to buy new athletic shoes. No, I am not going to write about goal setting techniques or time management skills. Thought leaders on those subjects are plentiful – only a brave few speak on world domination, hypothetically speaking of course. That soapbox is wide open.
Ten months later my wife’s sentiments are the same, Parkinson’s still sucks; but wait there must be more. There has to be more. Otherwise, I could just do a quick copy-paste, add a few paragraph breaks, insert yet another picture of the wonder pup and we could go back to bed. After all it is 4:30 on a Sunday morning. There has to be some other place I would rather be!
Defining normal. That’s an easy exercise; just enter the word in a text box on Dictionary.com and, like magic, a definition will appear. Striving to be normal is much more complicated. But is that even a worthy goal? Since I started writing these posts under the moniker alvandyk.com, the tag line has always been Striving for Normalcy While Living with Parkinson’s. I am now convinced that I set the bar far too low. It’s time to rethink the notion that normalcy is the gold standard.