You can make your Life worth it by living your
dream.
All of us have dreams. But few actually live them –
because most of us are often trapped in the rigmarole of everyday Life:
earning-a-living, procrastinating and finally just not being able to break free
from a deceptive sense of “security” that actually cripples us and prevents us
from taking off!
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| The Family Massaro: Darold, Dante, Jennifer |
Here’s some inspiration from a threesome who are to set
sail on a voyage later this Saturday! Jennifer Munchow Massaro is a good friend
of mine who works as a communications professional in Silicon Valley. She’s
married to Darold Massaro, her best friend from college, who heads a creative
social media enterprise called Connected Social Media. The couple have a son,
Dante who is barely 10. Jennifer, Darold and
Dante have decided to give up all their predictable pursuits – a career, a
business and conventional school – for a couple years and instead, on Saturday,
September 28th, are setting sail on their 40-foot boat Benevento on
a journey that will take them through the Panama
Canal, into the Caribbean, up the East Coast, across the Atlantic and into the
Mediterranean.
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| The Benevento |
Jennifer has this to
say about the whole plan: “It’s true that the hardest part of embarking on an
extended sailing trip is actually leaving. It is an unbelievable amount of
planning. Getting the boat ready, renting our house, home-schooling,
vaccinations, medicines, provisioning…it’s enough to discourage anyone from
realizing a dream; especially those of us who are an innocent bystander of
someone else’s dream! I have realized that the only difference between someone
who says they want to do something big and someone who actually does something
big is not genius or inspiration. It’s the drudgery of planning and working the
plan! We are excited to shove off – September 28. And in addition to the thrill
of traveling to new places we are even more thrilled to leave the grind of
Silicon Valley and have quality time as a family. We are going to ease the main
(shipping lingo!), spill some wind from our sails and just slow down!”
Jennifer could not have articulated this better. She says she took time
understanding and sharing Darold’s dream of sailing around the world. But once
in, she decided, with Darold, that Dante’s best education would be to learn
from Life and through traveling. So, she calls herself the Head Mistress of
Open Ocean Elementary and, apart from being Darold’s First Mate on Benevento,
she will school Dante in more areas than what someone in 4th and 5th
grade can ever learn!
I believe all of us have this desire to go do something that will make
us come alive. But we all struggle with getting started. I am often in awe of
another friend of mine, Ramesh, who almost always finds the time and the means
to pursue what he loves doing. He’s been an entrepreneur, an educationist, has
been on a gruelling trans-Himalayan bike rally, has been on several nature
expeditions, does his bit for cleaning up the environment and is now
understanding and exploring making films with a cause. While many of us find it
difficult to juggle between a career and home, Ramesh keeps diving into
whatever gives him joy. And I believe he’s able to pull it all off, every
single time, only because he focuses on what makes him come alive.
I have learned that to follow a dream you need to stop looking for
guarantees in, and from, Life. One of the reasons people don’t get started is
because they want to know if things will be okay when they try to do what they
love doing. Unfortunately, there are no guarantees in Life. And if you wait to
get everything logically set or for outcomes to be forecast with certainty or
for safety nets to be in place – socially, financially or for the family – you may
never quite feel reassured. Remember: you have only so much time (left) to
follow your dream! So, if you really want to live your dream – simply go after
it. Plan for sure, as Jennifer says, but don’t hold yourself back. Take the
plunge – dive in! And watch yourself come alive, as Ramesh has perhaps felt
every single time!
Lovely, I wish I could do something similar. Just break free and get going for something I love but can't do at the moment.
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