Committing to your dreams

“If you don't invest very much, then defeat doesn't hurt very much and winning is not very exciting.”
Dick Vermeil

I grew up in a large family. I am the youngest of eight children. My mother raised us by doing odd jobs here and there and with a small amount of money my father gave her each week to run the household.

I have no problem believing the story of how Jesus fed 5,000 with a few fish and loaves of bread. Somehow my mother was able to provide for us with very limited resources week after week.

Along the way, I was taught that success meant sacrificing something along the way to meet your goal.

For example, I knew that I would have to fund my own tuition, books and transportation to university. While my colleagues at school had money to go to movies and do other things, I didn’t want to dip into the money I had saved for my higher education. As well as being shy, I didn’t have any money for dating. If I did take someone out, it didn’t cost very much. It was often easier to stay at home and not go out. Anyway, if I had to have a fancy car, smart car or spend a lot of money on someone, they didn’t get who I was. Things don’t define me.

The result is that my university degrees mean a lot to me. Do I think I am smarter or better than everyone else? Not at all. What’s important is that I set a goal, charted the course and stuck with it until I reached my destination. That is the greatest thing I learned.

When I got into sport administration, I found out the amount of time athletes in some sports train, often at unsociable hours. Figure skaters sometimes have to skate very early in the morning. Gymnasts practice for up to six hours a day. Swimmers are in the pool constantly. They usually sacrifice any semblance to a normal life to reach their goals.

However, in today’s world there seems to be the idea that we should have it all and without any sacrifice. We were musing today at our bed and breakfast at how some of the great comedians of yesteryear honed their skills in Vaudeville. In today’s culture, you go into a studio and produce a video that looks slick. You get well known by being infamous rather than famous.

The key in the quote is the satisfaction you get or don’t get by committing to your dream. That’s the part where many people fail. They allow things into their lives which divert and take away from that dream. When this happens, it is often sad. People miss out on what could be potentially some great moments because they are unwilling to pay the price for success.