Okay.  So lets say there’s this girl named Pippin.  It doesn’t matter how old she is.  Or where she came from, or what color her skin or hair is, or what her faith is, or where she’s placed her latest tattoo.  All that matters is that Pippin wants to get to Orlando.  Like, Orlando is her biggest dream.  Actually, it’s more than her dream.  It’s what she thinks about whenever she’s not doing her other really important life stuff.  Even when she is focused on her life stuff, she’s still got Orlando in the back of her mind.  And let’s say Pippin has dreamed about Orlando since as long as she can remember.  She knows it’s warm, has cool trees and an ocean.  She wouldn’t mind seeing Disneyworld, but that’s secondary to just being there.  And she knows it’s farther away than she’s ever been, but she’s fuzzy on the specifics.  Despite this murkiness, she’s never purchased a map.  And she always put off getting her driver’s licence, won’t get on a plane, and she hates the bus.  Hitching is out of the question (too many lunatics out there).  Lately she’s been talking about Orlando but all the people Pippin knows are telling her that it’s kind of dangerous there.  And they’re certainly not going to go with her.  Besides the danger, they say, is the problem about the distance.  Like I said, it’s really, really far away from her.  So she thinks about it a lot.  She spends some time at the library & on the net – a lot, actually – looking at the pros and cons of Orlando.  She gets a lot of the facts, and she still really wants to go, but still she never buys the map, doesn’t get her licence or bother to yell to her friends that nothing is impossible and she doesn’t need them to go anyway.  Pippin never puts one foot in front of the other to start her journey.  So how the hell is she ever going to get to Orlando?  The answer is way too easy.  She’s totally not getting there.  It’s not enough to have a dream.  It never is.  The big juicy dream needs time & energy & passion & dedication & honesty & a determination to never, ever let it go.  Not ever.

So what’s your Orlando?  And do ‘ya have a map?

This entry was posted on Friday, August 3rd, 2007 at 7:04 am. You can leave a comment below.