At the end of the week, I realized that I was not mentally ready to embrace the Intro to Entrepreneurship at a double-pace. The material is terrific; too good to take it slightly; too much to digest it in twenty hours, but I like the challenge.
Reflecting on Randy Pausch’s last lecture, I believe that he was able to achieve so many of his childhood dreams because, first of all, he dared to dream. He believed in his dreams and led his life in the right way: then, the dreams came to him.
Dreams are not only necessary but essential to living our life to full potential; dreams make us different from animals. A man without dreams wastes his whole human experience. The exercise to pursuing a goal gives us direction and destination in life; also, a purpose and motivation to overcome roadblocks.
As an avid young boy, like many others, I dreamed of being a pilot. Since my mother kept me always busy doing routine shores at home, I remember reluctantly obeying while thinking on that day when I could invent something that doing the work for me; in the 60’s I had no idea about computers. Later my dream was defined as computer programing. My creativity as a child was remarkable, and my parent’s friends convinced me that I should be an architect. If being an architect gives me the power to “create,” then this is my dream.
I attended the college of architecture, although I did not finish it, but achieved enough to fulfill my dream as a builder. When I got married, our financial resources were not enough to pay for my flying lessons, so I fell short to get my pilot license. However, every evening I took my two years old son to the small airport for my class. One day he stood in front of an airplane and pointing at it told me: “Daddy, I will be a pilot.” He never deviated his vision from that goal, and today he is a thriving commercial airline captain.
In the ’80s, having a personal computer was not as common as now on day. There were not many software applications in the market, so if you want the computer to do something for you, your better know how to program it. I tough my children to reading, writing, and basic math using simple applications that I created. Today, my youngest son is a successful programmer with a handful of other programmers working for him from home around the world.
What a blessing. I could say that I achieved all my childhood dreams, although not in the way that I expected. I fly with my son whenever and wherever I want, my children and I had made our houses “smart homes” with devices working for us all around. My wife is an architect, I am a builder, together we have designed and built beautiful houses for our customers.
I am not done. I don’t have a bachelor’s degree yet and don’t want any of my ten grandchildren to believe that it is OK to drop-off school. I am still working on my dreams; I will keep doing it until I convince myself that I have had a meaningful life.
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