Checking the Map: Olympic Sized Dreams

By David Fischer

The best in the WORLD, not many can say that they truly earned the title.

Tuesday, the US women’s gymnastics team earned the right by taking Olympic gold in the all-around team final. As I watched these girls, who are all in their teens, I could not help but feel unaccomplished in comparison. The girls all worked their butts off, day in and day out, to make their dream a reality.

What have I done? Nothing that millions of other people have not already accomplished.

Goals and Dreams.

My friends and I have unrealistic lofty goals when it comes to what we want to be “when we grow up”.

At the moment I would love to be the owner of a successful communications consulting firm or be a high profile attorney. In my circle of best friends:

                        - D wants to be a physician’s assistant.
                        - S wants to be biomedical engineer.
                        - L wants to be a psychologist and own her own private practice.
                        - P wants to be an NGO for the United Nations

All of these career fields are ridiculously competitive and require a lot of hard work. All of us will need to make huge sacrifices in order to just BE what we want to be, let alone considered successful.

But at the rate we are going, I don’t think any of us will ever see the idealistic life we picture for ourselves right now. This is especially true for me. Like most people I have talked to, I am completely lacking in motivation. I have not touched an LSAT booked, I don’t even have a legible resume, all I have been doing is bumming around wasting valuable time.

It makes me think: if this is REALLY what we wanted to do, why don’t we work harder for it? Shouldn't I be doing everything I can, to get to where I want to be?

Motivation. Motivation. Motivation. 

The only time I truly feel motivated to do work is when I feel guilty or scared.

Both of these “motivators” are just short bursts of anxiety that tell me, I need to get off my ass. They never last long, a week at the most and even that is a stretch!

Gabby Douglas is a raising star on the US women’s gymnastics team. She had been doing gymnastics since she was little, it was her passion. She never really dreamed of going to the Olympics until she watched Shawn Johnson in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, dominate.

Safe to say, she was truly inspired. At the age of 12, she picked up her bags and moved from Virginia Beach to Iowa to train under Shawn Johnson’s world renowned coach.

Gabby went by HERSELF. At 12 she knew she wanted to be an Olympic gymnast, nothing was going to get in her way.

And nothing did...

Gabby was not motivated by fear or by guilt. She saw someone great accomplish something very few people have. She was awestruck, she was INSPRIED.

I truly believe that inspiration with a sprinkle of passion is one of the biggest motivators out there. Something or someone out there sparks a fire into you that cannot be put out, that will just grow stronger until you accomplish what you set out to do.

One Day.

Unfortunately I haven’t had a strike of inspiration, I’m still looking.

So wanting to be a lawyer or own a consulting firm, or even just wanting to be “successful” may only be what society is influencing me to want. It may just be a nice thought, a passing vision of what I want my life to be, not truly my goal. Because if it was exactly what I wanted, I would stop at nothing to achieve it.

But no matter what, I know what I am capable of and how far I can go. I refuse to ever feel disappointed in myself.

So you may not remember me now, but one day you’ll know my name.