"As a young woman, I did my thinking with a youthful mind that was housed in an energetic, youthful body." Those words were spoken to me by a lady that I only knew as Mrs. Pitre. She was an older lady at the time, speaking to me as a young man full of vim and vigor. I never forgot what she told me, but as I look back on that conversation from about thirty years ago, it's now easier than it was then for me to identify with what she was telling me. The ideas, values and opinions that we hold today are the ones that we expect to cling to for the rest of our lives, no matter what stage of life we happen to be in at the time, but let me assure you, some of those ideas and opinions will change with the passage of time. Let me give you a couple of examples that will help you understand what I'm talking about. When Valerie, our daughter, was a little girl, we gave her a subscription to "Highlights Magazine." One day she said to me, "I love Highlights! I want to keep getting this magazine even after I'm an adult." I'm 99.99% sure that subscription was dropped years ago, even several years before she grew up. Then, just one day last week, Lake, my five year old grandson, was talking to me about some books that he likes, and he asked me what books are my favorites. When I told him, he wanted to see one of them, and he asked, "Why do you like books that don't have pictures? I like books with a picture on every page." I replied, "That's because you're five and I'm sixty." He responded, "Well, when I grow up, I'm still gonna like books with pictures."
I'm sure you're aware that we're about to enter into the year 2012. Have you thought about how old you'll be on your 2012 birthday? I've thought about my age, and I've also thought about how differently I view the world than I did thirty years ago when I had that conversation with Mrs. Pitre. Let me fill you in on just a little bit more of what she told me that day: "When we were young, my husband and I had just started our business and we made a conscious decision to pour our lives into it so that by the time we got old and decided to retire, we'd be financially able to do anything we wanted to do. Well, here we are. We're old and ready to retire...and just like we planned, we can basically afford to do anything we want. The problem is, we're old and we don't feel like doing any of these things we dreamed of doing when we were younger. If we had it to do over, we would've enjoyed life a little more when our energy levels were higher."
What are your goals and dreams? As a younger man, wealth was one of my life's objectives, but like I was telling you earlier, with maturity, my thought process has changed. I now find myself agreeing with a statement I heard my dad say one time: "I wouldn't have any use for money if I didn't need to buy some things sometimes." Kudos to my friends who have dreamed and set out to make those dreams come true while they still have the time and energy. Our good friend, Sondra Hartt, dreamed of riding her bicycle from Mobile, Alabama to Niagara Falls, and Angie and I were privileged to join her husband, Mike, as we traveled to Niagara to see her finish that five week journey. Another good friend, Janice Lally-Gonzales, is now in the process of fulfilling a dream to run a full marathon (26.2 miles) in each of the fifty states, and I have no doubt that she will see that goal accomplished. (She's well over half way there already.) We'll be joining her for a couple of them this year as she adds Oklahoma and Illinois to her list, and Janice, we plan to be there for number fifty, when ever and where ever it is.
Hiking the entire Appalachian Trail (2,174 miles) at one time has never been a dream of mine (I just wouldn't want to be away from home and family for the six months required to make that journey.), but hiking a portion of it has been, and I'm putting plans in motion now to make it happen. You see, I know how old I'll be on my next birthday, and if I don't start making some dreams become reality now, I'll wake up one morning to find that it's too late. I must say that I've already accomplished some goals...I wanted to see if I could run a full marathon, and now, twelve marathons later, I'm still at it. It's just that I never want to get to the point to where I have no challenges left to look forward to.
Do you have any goals and dreams? It might be a good idea to go ahead and begin preparations to make them come true.
Preston
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