I tell wonder-filled stories about hope and healing
“The reluctance to put away childish things may be a requirement of genius.” ~ Rebecca Pepper Sinkler
Keep your board games, puzzles, fairytales, and toys. Hang onto your intense curiosity, magical sense of wonder, and big dreams, especially those that you created when you felt that anything and everything was possible. The surest ways to success and happiness lie along those roads. Guard them like the precious gifts that they are.
Life is a daily series of once-in-a-lifetime chances. Keep taking them.
And they can call me crazy if I fail
All the chance that I need
is one-in-a-million.
And they can call me brilliant
if I succeed.
Gravity is nothing to me.
Moving at the speed of sound,
I’m just gonna get my feet wet
until I drown…
~ Ani DeFranco
Amelia Huckel-Bauer, one of the amazing cast members of Sing After Storms, sent me this poem the day after our opening night. Ani know how it goes for people with big dreams. She’s someone who would rather dive in and drown than stay safely on the shore and wonder what might have been if she had tried to swim. Ani, and Amelia, I’m with you.
We tell ourselves, “I’m much better off than a lot of people. This is good enough.” We get what we settle for. If you are a dreamer and a doer, good enough will never be enough because you know you can do better. Get out there and work hard for exactly what you want because everything takes hard work. There is no easy path. There is only good work that takes effort, energy, time, and passion. Give your best everyday to exactly what you want and you will find yourself in the midst of a life you love to live.
This picture will be my expression from now until the end of our Sunday night performance. Helen Keller once said, “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” Thank you times a million to everyone who played a part in getting us to tonight’s opening of Sing After Storms, particularly the stellar cast and production team who gave everything they have and then some to make this happen. In the immortal words of Hall & Oates, “you make my dreams come true…” Let’s go, on with the show!
The opportunities we have are not the works of others. They are born from our hearts. We create the opportunity we need and then build an answer to it. It’s the only way I know to make a dream come true.
I love The Huffington Post‘s Good News section. Yesterday I read this article about a teacher turned artist who gave up her successful and steady career in education to follow her paintbrush and her heart. It lifted me up and I bet it will lift you up, too. Enjoy! Meet Layla Fanucci.
Ever feel done? Really done with a situation that’s been somewhat bearable for a while and now feels so heavy you have to let it go? I hit that wall Tuesday morning with a few of my consulting projects.
And in the midst of that realization there were so many incredible things happening—the amazing rehearsal process of Sing After Storms with our incredibly talented team and friends pouring in support through every possible avenue. I could feel transformation start to make its way into my life, the way water begins to carve its path through stone, the way plants begin to overtake manmade structures when left to their own devices. It feels like progress, however slow and uncomfortable it may be. I could sense a serious make-over of my entire life taking root right at the center of my heart.
Life is so incredibly short. As my friend, Alex, recently said to me, “I’m going to wake up and be 70. That’s how fast life’s going.” She’s totally right. Time is flying. My energy and creativity have to be channelled into what lights me up, not what tears me down. That’s all we really have time to do.
Dream one size: too big. Big dreams have a certain gravity about them. They draw us in close and hold our attention. My favorite dreams are the ones that need other people to make them possible, dreams that are so big that it will take many lifetimes to see them in their full form. That’s what gets me out of bed in the morning: doing my small part of something that needs the hands, hearts, and minds of others to make it a reality. Dream big. Really big. And then, even bigger.
“If you don’t build your dream, someone will hire you to help build theirs.” ~ Tony Gaskins. Now hear this: you are every bit as talented, intelligent, and creative as every yahoo out there who figured out a way to make their dreams come true. The only difference is that they went for it full throttle. They found a way up, over, and through every obstacle placed in their way. You can, too. And you must. The world needs your dream and you are the only one who can build it.
Christa Avampato 