One of my favorite more recent holiday movies is “The Holdovers.” To give a little overview, the movie follows Angus Tully as he gets stuck spending his Christmas break at his boarding school with a curmudgeon of a professor and the school cook. It’s an exploration of personal convictions, complicated familial relationships, and how we respond to grief and disappointment.
One sub-plot of the movie touches on Professor Hunham’s desire to be an established writer. There is a small conversation between him and the cook, Mary Lamb, about why he hasn’t finished his book yet. Professor Hunham gives some excuse about how his dream as really silly and it probably won’t happen, then Mary drops one of the best lines of the whole film: “You can’t even dream a whole dream, can you?”
Now, when I first watched this I literally had to pause the movie and sit in silence for a while. It was like a slap in my face. I was reminded about how, whenever someone asks what I want to do when I get older I start off saying where I’ll probably end up and not where I want to be. Just like Professor Hunham, I wasn’t letting myself dream a whole dream. I was cutting it off before it even had a chance to become real.
Yes, my real dream of moving to a big city and work for a publishing house will probably not happen immediately after I graduate college, but that doesn’t mean it will never happen. So, why am I already acting like it won’t? My life has barely even begun!
It can be easy to look at all the odds set against you and give up on those aspirations you once held for your life, but then what are you really working towards? Mediocrity? A “plan-b” life?
Dreams are what motivate us. They put wind in our sails. Innovation, creativity, real change; this all comes from the dreams someone once held onto. They didn’t let societal expectations trample their aspirations for a fulfilling life. So, don’t let the world take your dream from you either. Hold onto it because one day the upward climb will pay off and it’ll no longer just be a dream, but your reality.
The next time someone asks you what you want from life, don’t tell them what they want to hear. The first step to making your dreams come true is to believe it, so believe.
What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore— And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over— like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags like a heavy load. Or does it explode?
Langston Hughes