Teenagers Leave a Mark

INTRODUCTION

Preparing For A Dream

Do you have a lifelong dream? Is it well defined and written down? Does pursuing it give your life purpose? Experts speculate that only 3 percent of Americans have a dream they have written down. This number is surprisingly low, considering the dynamic role a dream can play in your life. You’ll improve your life dramatically and change the world in amazing ways by pursing a dream.

Martin Luther King Jr. captivated an entire nation by declaring, “I have a dream!” Those four words are full of potential, yet rarely spoken. Two years after declaring his dream, King witnessed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and became the youngest person ever to receive the Nobel Peace Prize—all because of his dream.

Do you ever wonder about your purpose in life or your destiny? If you have ever asked for advice about what you should do with your life, in response you were probably asked what you were good at. Then you were encouraged to do whatever that was. This advice is confusing because it’s great advice for establishing your goals but not for identifying your destiny. Yet the advice is usually the same whether you ask a parent, professor, pastor, or priest. You’re left to speculate that there may be more to life than goals, but you are at a loss for where to turn for answers.

Pursuing a dream and fulfilling your destiny doesn’t mean doing more of what you are already good at. Instead—and it’s critically important for you to understand—pursuing a dream means finally becoming the person you’ve always wanted to be. The dream that will enable you to fulfill your destiny is not a type of goal. Goals come from your strengths. Goals represent wants and desires that you try to obtain with your natural talents, learned abilities, gifts, and ambitions. A dream is different because it comes from a predominant need or weakness that keeps pushing you until you finally begin pushing back. Your dream is designed to confront the shortcoming that plagues you most. A dream challenges you to excel where you are most vulnerable. You never begin with the strength you need to achieve your dream. But if you embrace it anyway, you will learn how to grow in new ways, depend on God, and develop as an individual. It’s a fact of life. However, it’s not presented as a guide for living in many sources other than Teens Leave A Mark.

A voice from somewhere inside tells you that even though you might feel insecure or incapable, you can actually achieve an extraordinary dream once you decide to face your most predominant need or weakness. The voice you hear is not meant to make you feel uncomfortable with yourself. Instead, it holds out a promise, a clue that will guide you to something you ought to be searching for: a better life.

As an infant, Helen Keller contracted a deadly illness that left her deaf, blind, and mute. When Helen was seven years old, Ann Sullivan began teaching her to communicate. Once she began communicating, Helen developed an insatiable appetite for learning. She eventually became the first deaf-blind person to graduate from college. Helen realized that her destiny was for the thing she was the worst at (communicating with others) to become what she was best at. She became a world-famous speaker and prolific author who said, “I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble. The world is moving along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker.”

Pursuing a dream is not a great or noble task. Instead, it’s a humble task that produces a great and noble life—a life that’s full of meaning and purpose. You’re about to discover that having a dream is not so difficult. In fact, pursuing your dream will prove to be one of the most enjoyable and meaningful experiences of your life!.