His Dream
“Mommy, I was dreaming yesterday,” said my loving and recently cognizant 4-year-old Aiden.
I’m only just starting to get used to my son having memories. Most of us don’t remember much before the age of three or four years old. Only recently has he started remembering.
I guess, he has also started remembering his dreaming. What a wonder the human mind is.
I had been distractedly cleaning up dinner but now he had my full attention. I stopped what I was doing and smiled at him. “What were you dreaming about, Aiden?” I asked.
“I was dreaming that my friends Carly, Matt, and Andrew were at my house to sleep,” he said.
“Wow, Aiden, that’s a great dream,” I said. “I love that you are dreaming. And that is actually a great idea. Maybe we’ll invite them over and make your dream a reality.”
He processed what I said, then smiled big. Now, I could see his gears turning.
“Mommy, I dream that my friends Christopher and Henry are coming over, too.”
Well, this posed a bit of a conundrum. We are living in a small house and I’m not sure we could sleep that many kids inside.
My Dream
“You know Aiden,” I said, now my eyes lighting up, “I was dreaming today, too, that we had a nice farm with a small house and a barn we could turn into a “party barn”. We could have a large open space with a stage on one side. And on the other side, we could have a bar and kitchen and above that, we could have a loft with a bunch of bunk beds where you could have sleepovers. Would you like that?”
He looked at my excitement and nodded back with enthusiasm.
“Yeah!” Aiden said, “And I want to sleep in tents, too!”
“Well we won’t have our party barn for a few years, but we can definitely have a backyard camping party! We can have everyone bring a tent and camp in our backyard. That way if any little kids get tired or scared, they could just come inside and sleep. We can have the parents over, too. Wouldn’t that be fun?”
“Yeah!” he exclaimed.
And just like that, we had a plan for Aiden’s birthday party next year.
The Value of Dreaming Together
I would never have come up with the idea of a backyard camping birthday party had it not been for Aiden’s dream. Now, I have to work on convincing our friends to do that with us… I think it’ll be a blast.
So often, we get caught up in the day to day of our lives. We go from home to work to home to sleep and forget that there are other options. I certainly get caught up in the regular humdrum of habit and simply forget to dream sometimes.
But, it is when we stop and dream that magical things happen. The act of dreaming opens up our minds to the possibility of the most fantastic, the perceived unreachable, the most fabulous thing we could ever see happening.
The Compounding Magic of Dreaming Together
If we dream with someone else, another level of magic happens. When we vocalize our dreams to our loved ones, an idea that was just a wisp of a passing thought in our minds, starts to take on a more solid form.
As we bounce dreams off each other, real possibilities begin to emerge. A plan begins to take form.
And suddenly, we find ourselves with fantastic results- the formation of a goal.
Dreaming Together Helps Build Wealth
Dreaming together is how my husband and I first began our money journey. The possibility of paying off student loans early was a pipe dream of mine. Financial independence with a pipe dream of Josh’s. We lived together and both assumed that these dreams weren’t worth voicing because they would never come true. We learn to temper and hide our dreams among the ugly truths of reality. This is what many consider “growing up.”
But, reading Jim Dahle’s book opened up my mind to the possibility that paying off loans within 4-5 of training was not such an unreasonable expectation. So, I worked up the nerve to talk to Josh. Together, we sat and planned out a way to make our dreams a reality.
Now that we know what we are working towards and what each other wants, the way forward is clear. He keeps me from straying off the path and I do the same for him.
Finally, we are student debt-free and quickly making out way towards financial freedom.
We Have to Mention the Ultimate Dreamer
“I say to you today, my friends, though, even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up, live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream … I have a dream that one day in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boy’s and white girls as sisters and brothers.”– Rev. Martin Luther King
Rev. Martin Luther King dared to voice his then fantastical dream to an entire nation.
Look at the results.
We may not be perfect, but we are getting there. We are far farther than we would have been had this one man not dared to voice his dream.
The Family Dream Date
When it comes to our lives, our future, and our finances, I think it is SO important to dream with the whole family. When we dream together, we can better understand what the other truly desires. Then, we can make a plan to work towards it and make all our dreams a reality. So, schedule a dream date with your loved ones and see what amazing things happen!
Stay tuned next week for more on the dream date.
Stay Frugal!
Disha
Standard Disclaimer: Not meant as individualized financial advice. Photos from Unsplash.com