Musician, pro-athlete, actor.
Most people have similar childhood ambitions, setting their sights on the career of their choice and envisioning themselves living out their dream.
Then, throughout people’s teenage and adolescent years, reality might have reshaped those dreams and the same kid who dreamed of being a pro-athlete, quickly found himself sitting behind a desk, wondering how he got there.
Seeing a dream come to fruition is highly unlikely. According to a Perkbox Insights survey, only 4 percent of adults are successful in turning their dream job into a reality.
In Teri Broom’s first-grade class, she hears her students talking about their dreams that vary from becoming a Dallas Stars player to being an astronaut. While the things we say as kids may have no sense of direction or aren’t taken seriously, everyone has the right to dream, no matter how big or small.
“It’s good to not squash their dreams, but it’s important to also give them other options because you can have a lot of dreams,” Broom said.
Keeping young kids’ ambitions alive is of utmost importance, because without dreams, motivation begins to disappear. Societal expectations, concerns for their futures and a want for stability often cause people to shift away from their dreams.
People often are driven to be responsible and settle for a reliable paycheck instead of taking a risk and doing something they once dreamed of.
Malcolm K. and Minda Brachman Master Teaching Chair Dr. Martin Stegemoeller argues that providing for one’s family, even if it comes at the cost of a dream, is a selfless and virtuous lifestyle.
“A number of St. Mark’s graduates realize that the meaning in their life will be connected to their family, church, friends or civic engagements,” Stegemoeller said. “To them, there is no dream. The vision lies in the upper middle class, and hoping they have a loving relationship with their spouse and their kids.”
He doesn’t say this as a criticism. He says it as a defense.
There’s a certain virtue, he argues, in providing for a family at a high level, being a good employee and leader, doing hard work without needing it to be glamorous. Tunnel vision on a single passion, he says, closes more doors than it opens.
He presents thought experiment to make his point. Imagine two boys. One is passionate about leadership – learning to be responsible and take his duties seriously, developing the habits that make people want to follow him. The other is passionate about chemistry and pours himself into it completely…
“Fast forward 40 years,” Stegemoeller said. “The boy who owned responsibility is likely thriving at a higher level than the boy invested in chemistry.”
While focusing on leadership and responsibility ultimately lead to a wider array of career paths, Stegemoeller admits that passion isn’t worthless. However, passion without discipline is.
“Prioritize being a leader of character. Make that a passion,” Stegemoeller said. “Then, say you have a passion for history, late at night when your homework is done is when you have a deep conversation with AI to gain more knowledge. Do that for an hour a day and you will know a lot of history.”
He points to the physicist Richard Feynman, who was constantly asked how it felt to be born a genius. Feynman responded by telling people that he wasn’t born a genius. But if you studied the way he studied, you would know what he knew.
Stegemoeller believes that going beyond what is expected of you and working harder than the average person is when the extent of true passion is revealed.
But sometimes it still doesn’t work out.
Senior Jake DeBoever found that out the hard way by spending years working towards playing baseball in college. The work was real and the effort was noticeable: the late nights, the morning practices, the games far from home. In the disappointing process of letting that dream go, he found sports analytics — a field that kept him inside the game he’d built his life around, just from a different perspective.
“It sucked when I realized that I wouldn’t be able to continue playing the sport I structured my whole life around,” DeBoever said. “But I knew that I could instead adapt and find a school that would fit all of my needs without playing baseball.”
His story is, in Stegemoeller’s framework, something closer to ideal. The dream shifted, but the foundation stayed strong, opening up new opportunities.
Every dream is worth pursuing. The building of a foundation centered around leadership, responsibility and discipline doesn’t guarantee success either. There is nothing guaranteed in life, but the stronger the foundation, the harder it is for a person to be knocked down and discouraged.
“Work your hours, develop your passion,” Stegemoeller said.“There is no guarantee that you’re going to be successful. But if you are truly great at your passion, you must have the discipline to value it amidst a group of people who may not value it.”
