Week 10: Dream Big Dreams

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This week you will make your tenth journal entry/blog post. Reflect upon the things that you are learning and experiencing so far in this course. What are you looking forward to learning and experiencing? What did you learn from the readings and videos this week?

This week I worked hard on my Entrepreneur Interview paper. I re-listened to the interview a few times really soaking it all in. I had noted my impressions and went back over those notes seeing if my impressions had changed from when I first heard Jo's comments to now. First impressions remained the same. That in and of itself was interesting to me.

I particularly enjoyed the short video "License to Pursue Dreams" by Marissa Mayer at Google. She said that passion and momentum build when skilled employees have access to great tools and the time to stretch them in new directions. My ears perked up a bit with this one. Jo Day, my entrepreneur interviewee, and her husband Kevin created their company out of frustration with the tools made available to them at their jobs. This goes hand in hand with "necessity is the mother of invention." Our lives are made better because of great tools. As humans, we gauge the animal kingdom's intelligence in part based on a species' use of tools. As God's crowning creation, we can be better too with the creation and use of better tools. I loved what Ms. Mayer added though, that the time to stretch ourselves in new directions is critical too.

Another lovely bit I learned this week in the videos was from Acton Hero Kathy Huber. When asked about thinking outside of the box, she said she always liked to play with problems. I loved that she used the word "play." Do we allow our children enough time to play and to figure out their own problems? Do we allow them to struggle enough? Or do we fix everything, make it better, eliminate failure possibilities, refusing to see them as growth, strength, and character builders? I think yes.

My favorite assignment for the week was watching/reading (then) Elder Dallin H. Oaks' talk "The Challenge to Become." He said,

Now is the time for each of us to work toward our personal conversion, toward becoming what our Heavenly Father desires us to become. As we do so, we should remember that our family relationships—even more than our Church callings—are the setting in which the most important part of that development can occur. The conversion we must achieve requires us to be a good husband and father or a good wife and mother. Being a successful Church leader is not enough. Exaltation is an eternal family experience, and it is our mortal family experiences that are best suited to prepare us for it.

I LOVE how President Oaks ALWAYS nails a concept. He is a prophet, seer, and revelator indeed. My husband and I discussed this talk quite a bit this week. It helps us to remember that charity is not an act, but a condition or state of being. We must be changed into better creatures--into Christlike creatures--by our actions & choices. And we must know and remember that it is in the family situation where this is most likely to happen. It was wonderful reading this again as 2018 comes to a close and 2019 brings changes in format at church. So many people are focused on only 2 hours of church that they're missing the point. The point is 1 more hour of instruction and practice in the home, the most holy of places on earth next to the temple! What a wonderful time to be alive!

Week 2: Dreams, Gifts, and Stars

Q: What are you looking forward to learning and experiencing? What did you learn from the readings and videos this week?

A: I'm really looking forward to the accountability that comes from this class, in the "forcing" me to examine my dreams, goals, desires, efforts, etc.

There were a few elements in this week's readings that spoke to me. Particularly, Jeffrey Thompson's BYU devotional from 6/1/10 entitled, What Is Your Calling in Life? 

"Finding your calling in life may not be a matter of finding the one right job. Instead, it may be that your calling is to bring your unique spiritual gifts to whatever position the Lord blesses you with."

I've struggled all my professional life to truly feel "at home" with my career/jobs. I often feel like I've fraudulently stumbled into each success I've had, but that is lessening a bit as I age. I've also struggled with identifying my talents and gifts. I don't have the obvious ones such as painting, dancing, playing an instrument well, or singing.  When I have taken the time to sit, ponder, examine, and determine what my talents are, it's extremely difficult for me to see them in any marketable light. Perhaps this is why I am actually intrigued by entrepreneurship. I'm not fitting into others' boxes, but defining my own somehow. I'm not there yet. Anyway, Thompson's words bring me comfort. Maybe my skill set, talents, spiritual gifts, etc. aren't going to fit beautifully and obviously into one particular box. Maybe they're designed for me to fit sweetly wherever I go. I'll continue to ponder and pray on this.

I also really enjoyed Stars and Steppingstones. 

"Stars and steppingstones are about finding a purpose in your life: understanding what is fundamentally important, setting lifelong goals, arranging steppingstones to reach those goals, and making course corrections when reality intervenes."

Ain't it the truth! The past 25 years have been one course correction after another. I'm okay with that... now. 

About Randy Pausch's Last Lecture...

{Three or four months ago, my husband and I watched his complete lecture, so I knew what this was about. The condensed version really captured the highlights, obviously.}

• Why do you think Randy Pausch was able to achieve so many of his childhood dreams?
• Do you feel that dreaming is important? Why or why not?
• Discuss at least one of your childhood dreams. Explain why you believe you can or cannot achieve this dream.

1) I don't believe it can be stated strongly enough that the freedom to play, experiment, and feel supported/loved by his parents while in his childhood led him to the deep seeded belief that he could actually make his dreams a reality. I also believe he married well. That matters an awful lot too.

2) Dreaming is important because it allows us to be more in touch with the spiritual and less cumbered by the physical. We are spirits in mortal flesh. One day our flesh will be perfected/immortal, but until then, our flesh is a mortal overlay that can drown out what our spirits already know. Dreaming is detachment from flesh in a way. Dreaming can help us "remember" what our spirits already knew from before we were born. God sent us here with gifts, blessings, talent, and testimonies, and if we dare to dream, we can put all those things beautifully into motion for good. Dreaming allows us to gravitate toward our God-given desires, abilities, and inclinations.

3) I always wanted to be a wife and a mother. I'm a wife now, which is fabulous. I'm not a mother in the traditional sense though. It is NOT what was desired, but it is nonetheless okay. I have two grown stepsons, who were adults when I married. I really don't get to do much mothering in regard to them. I do what I can. They have my love and support. I have been a young women's president twice, a primary president, primary teacher, and activity day girls leader. I get to mother and mentor girls left and right! I don't know why the good Lord sees fit for my journey to not include being a momma, but I know he sees to it that I get to exercise my God-given inclinations to mother (verb). I'm so thankful for it too. 

Around age 13 or so, I decided I wanted to be a high school French teacher. That was my desire for years and years. I no longer have title of High School French Teacher in my list of dreams or desires. Honestly, the thought makes me ill. I do not want to teach high school at all. However, what I've learned about this dream, after all these years, is that it wasn't a bad or incorrect dream. At the time I identified this dream, I didn't see it as a combination of dreams, but as a single thing. But time has made me see that combination of dreamy desirable components. My high school French teachers were mothers. They were able to be home with their children. They spoke French. They traveled. They were "wordly" (in the good sense of the word). They were articulate in two languages. I wanted to be all of that! I just saw it as one, not many. Each of those components is what I always wanted for my life, and still do. I have achieved much of this dream to the best that the circumstances within my control have allowed. 

I'm thankful that through time, Heavenly Father is allowing me (and helping me) to look back on my path with understanding and gratitude. I'm able to see the bigger picture, and it's still pretty.