You don't have to wait

If you want to see the Eiffel Tower, you do have to wait. Photo by janeb13.

I want every kid in the world to know that they don't have to wait until they’re done with school to start their actual lives.

What is the scary thing that you’d really love to do? What can you do today to move toward it?

Too many of us postpone our dreams. We don't even think our dreams are possible in our circumstances.

There’s also the illusion that traditional school creates. Mysteriously, it takes every American child exactly thirteen years to gain the knowledge and skills necessary for college and adulthood. Must this be so?

The truth is, the only way things are ever going to change in our lives is if we decide they will change — and that can happen at any time we choose. When you listen to interviews or read biographies of highly successful people, a common thread is that they took strategic risks in order to take advantage of opportunities or create their own. This may not seem possible for the seventh grader who has to go to school and do what people tell them to (or for the forty-five-year-old parent with a mortgage), but it can be.

One definition of leadership is not waiting for someone else to do the thing that you see needs to be done. This can be as simple as raising your hand to contribute to a conversation or taking out the trash without being asked, but it can also be as complex and powerful as seeing that a friend needs comfort or finding a cure for cancer. There are so many possibilities for us to create something out of nothing.

Fulfilling lives come from making things. Sometimes we want to manifest our creativity physically, like in a piece of art or a handcraft. Sometimes we want to build a legacy — an idea or a tradition that will outlive us. All of these things are possible, and they are possible for our children as well...while they are children.

A student needn't wait until school is complete to begin the life she wants. She can start now, with your help. She can figure out what she values and what kind of mark she wants to make...not necessarily for all time, but at least for today. The two of you together, pursuing this vision, create a formidable entity that will help you to resist depression, frustration, hopelessness, and helplessness.

There will be obstacles. After years of being told not to “read ahead” in the book, the pressure to remain in lock-step with one’s peers can be strong. But such inconveniences as being bored in class or being the subject of gossip are worth the risk.

One of my students overcame this fear to cover three years’ worth of high school math as an eighth grader. He shot so far forward that he found himself with an entirely new set of peers and changed the whole course of his academic life. Another student, frustrated by her classmates’ jealousy over her her musical talent, chose to embrace her musical ability by taking up new musical instruments and seeking out opportunities to perform outside of her school, thereby finding a community willing to support and encourage her. Yet another has devoted her free time to saving the rhinos, even winning a prestigious local award when she was in elementary school (and probably the appreciation of the rhinos as well).

Children and teens can be artists, entrepreneurs, makers, scholars, healers, change agents, advocates, influencers, and innovators. Not someday — today. If we provide the space and support for it to happen, they can move toward their dreams immediately.

The hardest place to make that space is within our own expectations.