My Daughter's Graduation Reminds me to Keep on Day dreaming

On Saturday, my oldest daughter can potentially dawn her cap which gown and cross the stage to collect the diploma she worked hard to earn. As I watch her together with her friends finishing off their few years, a few things straight strike a chord in me. They've got something so many of us older folks forget. They remind me of ways important it is to make a difference in the world a lot more making a difference gives meaning alive.

When my daughter graduated from high school, she wanted to become a science teacher. She had some great role models. She liked applying kids and did really well in her science music videos. As she started the science program in college, alongside with pre-med students, she realized it wasn't exactly what she forecast.

Somewhere in the critical of her sophomore new season, she told us she'd picked her major : Integrated Communications. She explained it had become a combination of optimization, advertising and communications. But somehow she still wanted to be involved with children. Which summer, she made some cables and landed herself a fundraising job within the children's cancer hospital. She returned there again survive summer for her second year illustration intern. A few times ago, she interviewed for a position much the same office in a fund raising (they call it development I hear) peak. (No news yet, but please keep her during the prayers. )

Contrast this that has some conversation I had utilizing an old high school friend of mine. His daughter's graduating here is a month too and she's been accepted to the York City program workout program inner city kids. He was pleased with her accomplishments, but was excited about her safety, the affordability of NYC together with her "Peacecorp" like salary. "How's she going to make it? " he routed.

As the father of the almost college grad, I must completely relate. But at the rear of my mind I can so identify with the passion driving that many of us kid. She so badly wants to make a difference and that energy source drives her tougher than caring for her very own self interest. Good for her!

A few weeks straight down, I caught the film Mr. Holland's Opus on television. In it, Richard Dreyfuss plays a musician who early in their life stumbles into teaching departing his desire to document his symphony, his opus. Over his 30 year career in the school, we watch him inspire students and possessing a difference in the world of his students. Sad to say, his career ends that has some school cutback in the designers arts progam. He is forced into retirement and describes it using this method to a friend:

You work for 30 years because you think what you do things, you think it matters to the people, but then you awaken one morning to see, well no, you've made a little error there, you're expendable.

It isn't until we view his students give him a shock recognition event that we see so clearly that Mr. Holland's Opus was n't his symphony, but the consequences he made on are so many lives.

We need meaning in the present lives. We need careers that support some aspect of that meaning. In the movie "Up in the Air" (a Must go to for every working may non-working professional out there) Johnson Bingham, played by George Clooney, confronts a guy he's just fired using the following words:

Ryan Bingham: Your resume says that you simply minored in French Culinary. Most students work how the fryer at KFC. You bused tables at Il Picatorre aid yourself. Then you kept college and started lighting up here. How much did they pay you to get rid of on your dreams?

Bob: Twenty seven thousand a year.

Ryan Bingham: At what point have you been going to stop and return to what made you pleasantly surprized?

I'm at a point in my life where I like what I do. I've switched in the hardcore software development career prospects to marketing, business improvement, blogging (you're sampling nyc stuff) and teaching as a possible adjunct at the indigenous colleges. I needed to venture held in a new direction to more effective use of my interpersonal skills and use students at this critical time in their life. I really enjoy feeding the guidance I locate I was missing being in college.

It's been a sharp and sometimes tough career prospects turn, but it's definitely given me purpose and i feel jazzed every morning taking on once you've my work dishes out at me.

I've coached those who have complain about the fruitlessness with this careers. They are dissatisfied with their lives and sometimes are even aware their careers are in the centre of their problem. Every one, these people can't bring themselves for your personal changes needed to reach a college alignment. They're too:

• accustomed over the money,






• burdened for no reason responsibilities and obligations or






• unwilling to face the fears and insecurities a big change might entail.

That's actually sad.

To my daughter and these graduating class of 2010, I say avoid this mistake. Follow your dreams. Take some type of chances. Take some dangers. Go out there and change the world. Very few people reach my age and says to simillar to the,

"I wish I was used more conservative. I wish We've taken a more secure route i believe life and career. "

Many do live with regrets concerning things they wish they'd done and never ran to doing.

Responsibilities and obligations agrees with. I can assure you of that. But do not let them blow out your open fireplace. You may not always be able to keep you dreams main, right and center, but have them in there somewhere so your passions continue fueling both you and driving you to deliver with regard to were meant to transport.

Hope this helps.

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