
Today I was watching one of my favorite movies called "The Ultimate Gift", if you have never seen it, I would recommend it. The entire movie can be found on YouTube and it is an overall "feel-good film". With this being said however, I must warn you it is very predictable, not very realistic and overall is just a weird concept of a film, but I still love it for other reasons. In the movie, the main character, Jason goes through a series of tasks in order to find himself and become a better person. These tasks include learning how to work for his money, create a good support system, and finding his dream. Along with the good message behind of the movie, I think I can relate to Jason when he tries to find his dream.
Throughout the past week, we have talked about finding yourself, spreading positive energy and combating the negative world around us, but we have yet to discuss where we should focus our energies. This is where your dreams come into play. Everyone has something they believe in (I will speak more about this tomorrow), and once they have figured out what they stand for, they can set goals for themselves to succeed. Since the beginning of this blog, the banner of this page has been a quote from Disney and it was done on purpose. In order to create a dream, it is best to establish dreams that others feel are impossible. By setting your sights higher than ever before, you have one of two options. You will either travel further than anyone has every traveled before, or if you fail, you will still reach a level high above the average level of success. Although it may seem impossible, you still need to put your whole self into the project and try your hardest.
Like Jason in the film, I don't really have a dream that is just for me, I primarily want to help others learn and reach their full potential. I consider myself to be in a place of power and privileged sometimes, so it is my duty to help teach others. With this being said, I also understand a person is more likely to learn from you if you teach them a set of skills in order for them to obtain their desires instead of just handing their desires to them. Because of this, education holds a big role in my dreams. At the moment I have three dreams, each of them come in many different levels and some border on the lines of the impossible, but I will still strive toward them and see what will happen.
The first dream is linked directly with this website. I understand I thrive in creativity and res life practices, so I believe this website could become a huge resource to others in my field. Although I have come so far in many different areas of the site (including this blog), I hope to steer the site toward a more instructive approach and increase the number of programs, begin a video series on how to make different bulletin boards/door decs and programs as well as other aspects such as mediation skills, budgeting, and other important parts of res life. I know I can always post more information, but with my new job, I hope to eventually expand the project to include a professional looking set of videos, possibly a partner to work with for the video series, and more of a conversation between me and my viewers/readers. In the end, I want to be the main resource students and professionals think of when they need to come up with new ideas or assistance with their work. I'm excited to build this community and see where it goes.
The second dream is linked to hands-on learning for students. I would like to return to teaching leadership courses to students in addition to my work in res life. This may be in a class similar to the male leadership course I taught last semester, or maybe running a summer leadership camp, but still playing an active role in the development of students as they begin to form their understanding of the world around them.
The last dream gets as close to the impossible line as possible, but I would like to work with Disney (or a similar company) to create a college specifically devoted to that company. Now before you write me off as crazy, let me try to explain myself. I have always stood by the principles of making your dreams come true and I don't think there is any better way than creating a pipeline which directly connects students to those dreams. It would also be beneficial for the company as well, if different majors are created specifically to target certain careers in the company such as hospitality, business, art, web design, etc, Disney would know the education provided was geared toward their principles and directly matched up with their beliefs. In addition, students would know this was the location where they had a better chance obtaining their own dreams working for the given company and would be introduced within a competitive field that focused on student development, strong imagination and maybe a small hint of pixie dust! With all joking aside, I think this could be the future of some businesses and I would love to be a part of the development and planning processes.
Although I do have my own personal dreams involving marrying the woman of my dreams, having the all american family with 2.5 kids, a dog and the white picket fence, I hope I always desire to help others make their dreams come true as well. That is just who I am, achieving the impossible is my business and the sky is the limit.