How to Prosper in the New Year

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I’m a dreamer. Are you a dreamer? Do you want to prosper in the new year?

I could sit there all day and envision myself in whatever situation I like. As a child, this was my escape. It was how I dealt with my surroundings and a less than idyllic childhood. I could literally see myself where I wanted to be. I could smell the surroundings, even. I could mentally put myself anywhere I wanted. The sky was the limit.

Somewhere along the way I learned that I needed to be less. My dreams needed to be smaller. I was told I had expensive taste and that I better marry someone rich because, man, did I just want the nicer things in life.

By being told this repeatedly, I slowly learned that the nicer things were not for me.

Expensive taste was not good.

Boy, did I have an imagination.

Is that the message we really want to be giving to little girls? Or boys, for that matter? So what if we spend our lives dreaming. Dreams are what make life worth living. They’re the things that make the impossible possible. Imagine if none of the world’s greatest minds didn’t dream? What would the world be like then?

This little blog of mine is a dream. A high flying, pie in the sky type of dream. I’ve got a hundred other dreams too. I know they’re not all attainable, but I wouldn’t be where I am now if I’d completely stopped imagining my life in certain ways.

Dreaming is what got me out of my tiny suffocating hometown. Imagine if I’d just thought — oh, college isn’t for me. Just like my guidance counselor said. I graduated 12th in my class, and my guidance counselor told me, “College isn’t for everyone.” What??? Great guidance there.

I once dreamed of becoming a fashion designer. So I picked myself up and went to fashion design school, on the day I turned 18. That college is where I met my husband, and why I have my three incredible children.

Little girls are born into a world that, on one hand, tells them they can be anything…but on the other hand dampens their hopes and dreams. If it doesn’t conform, if it’s too big; if their tastes are too expensive — it’s squashed into a smaller and more palatable box. Oh, honey, you want to be a doctor? Just marry one.

My dreams have changed over the years, and half the time I think they change from minute to minute. Or evolve. Part of this is because I’m my own misguided guidance counselor now. “It isn’t for everyone,” I tell myself.  It isn’t for me.

We have to break this cycle. We have to decide right here and now that whatever we decide can be for us, is for us.  

It’s all for us. Our Heavenly Father has great plans for us. Plans to prosper us. Prosper. Remember that.