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Wednesday, September 25, 2013

If something makes you come alive, go do it!

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!

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. 

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!


1 comment:

  1. 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.

    ReplyDelete