A dream is a wish your heart makes when you’re fast asleep.
Like Cinderella’s melodic chorus, a dream dawns as a desire of the heart.
Song lyrics often ring true with principles for life. In the 2007 country song, Crazy Dreams, super star and American Idol winner, Carrie Underwood, knows what she is singing about and to whom she is singing. Long shots. Dark horse runners. Firefly chasers. Go getters. Difference makers. Big chance takers. This collection of hopeful and determined souls is populated with hairbrush singers, dashboard drummers, air guitar players, and fearless dancers. All with crazy dreams.
The simple themes of Carrie’s song are encouragement and perseverance.
I stood at the bottom of some walls I thought I couldn’t climb
I felt like Cinderella at the ball just running out of time
So I know how it feels to be afraid
Think that it’s all gonna slip away
Hold on, hold on.
Never let a bad day be enough
To go and talk you in to giving up
Sometimes everybody feels like you
Oh, feels like you, just like you.
I live in a charming, small town in Texas saturated with creatives pursuing and living their crazy dreams. Storytellers. Visual artists. Musicians. Performing artists. Culinary creators. Home designers. Business builders. Many of my gifted women friends flourish in these fields.
Envisioning ways to achieve a dream is easy. Keeping that dream alive is hard and requires a village. When I talk to aspiring writers, I urge them to learn the craft and to find or assemble a support group. Within that circle, dreamers need encouragers, truth-tellers, and experts. Some of these helpers will be face-to-face friends, and some will be professionals discovered through books, podcasts, and social media. This unique community will cultivate enthusiasm, inspiration, accountability, and excellence.
If you are a wild magnolia just waiting to bloom or a young heart with something to prove, embrace the wonder inside and thank God even crazy dreams come true.
A Million Dreams from the 2017 film, The Greatest Showman, is about engineering a future that is better than the present. The bold themes are a positive attitude and a plan of action.
I close my eyes and I can see
The world that’s waiting up for me
That I call my own
Through the dark, through the door
Through where no one’s been before
But it feels like home
They can say, they can say it all sounds crazy
They can say, they can say I’ve lost my mind
I don’t care, I don’t care, so call me crazy
We can live in a world that we design
‘Cause every night I lie in bed
The brightest colors fill my head
A million dreams are keeping me awake
I think of what the world could be
A vision of the one I see
A million dreams is all it’s gonna take
A million dreams for the world we’re gonna make.
If you saw this movie, you’ll remember P.T. Barnum was bursting the seams of his dapper red coat with self-confidence. (I realize liberties were taken with the real life character.) He was a planner and a risk-taker. In the film, these traits developed during his childhood as he overcame life’s hard knocks while still possessing the capacity to dream big.
Can you imagine the positive self-talks the greatest showman must have had with himself? Fear of rejection, failure, and comparison are voices that sneak into my head and tell me I am a fraud and wasting my time. A daily declaration of truth – who I am and what I know is true – can squash the stinking lies and reignite the fading embers of my dream. Talking to an encourager and remembering how my passion was sparked in the beginning can also stabilize my wobbly dream.
Whether your dream is big or small, taking its first courageous breath or stagnant and craving fresh air, it can thrive if you find your people, don’t give up, stay positive, and make a plan. And maybe the dream that you wish will come true.
A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes from Cinderella, Performed by Ilene Woods,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1i8XVQ2pswg
Crazy Dreams, Performed by Carrie Underwood,
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4qr0s
A Million Dreams from The Greatest Showman, Performed by Ziv Zaifman, Hugh Jackman, and Michelle Williams
