Why Not?
Elizabeth Moore
“I just have too many dreams. It’s a problem,” I told my dear friend and mentor. I wrapped my arms around my head and attempted to crawl under the coffee table—partially as a joke, partially as a perfectly logical way of escaping real life. Hiding under tables always worked for me as a kid, so what difference does fifteen years make, right?
Well, as bonkers as it sounds, twenty year old girls don’t fit as well under coffee tables as five year old girls do. And even worse, apparently hiding under tables protects you from real life just about as well as crawling under your desk will protect you from a nuclear bomb.
Yep, real life is coming and nothing is slowing down the graduation date. Don’t look now, but real life could already be upon us, and we have to choose whether we will crawl under a table or meet it at the door. Will we meet it with a sock drawer of safe plans or an arsenal of wild dreams? Well, when it comes to dreams, I say the wilder the better.
Obviously it’s much easier to stay in the realm of safety. Safe plans make our parents happy and reassure our friends that we are capable of sanity. Safe plans are safe because we can control them without them controlling us. And most of all, safe plans have a guarantee of success, whereas wild dreams require lots of risk and plenty of disappointment.
But how can you be fully alive without taking insane risks? And what is so scary about failure anyway? Failure is an excellent teacher and a prime opportunity to start afresh.
So here’s to failure and its terrifying way of making us feel alive.
It’s time to put the fear of failure aside and discover what makes you fully alive—the things you lose track of time doing and finish with more energy than when you started. There’s a reason you stay up all night writing that story or working on that painting. There’s a reason you play music to a crowd of fifteen people and practice until your fingers hurt. There’s a reason you either love school or hate it—a reason you drive through the night to see that person, spend all your money traveling to that place, or spend all your time dreaming about dreams.
You are made the way you are for a reason. Why not pursue it? Why not trust that what the Lord says is true? “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28).
There’s a delicate balance between being practical and being you—between being safe and being alive. It’s a tough line to walk and looks different for everybody, but it can indeed be done. Big dreams require big responses and big risks, but it’s absolutely worth it. So dream big, scary dreams. Put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into those risks. Be a good steward of your passions, because they are yours for a reason.
There’s a lot of prayer and work to be done when we dream big. And honestly, there’s no guarantee that it won’t end in failure. But there’s also no guarantee that it will. You’ll never know until you try.
Just go for it. Why not?
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