chase your dreams!

I was reading one of my students blogs about our recent college visits… And I just had to respond.

She wrote:

last nite my dad was talking about college stuff. i don’t like to tell my dad what i want to study when i get into college because he always says stuff like you’ll never make a living off of that, that’s stupid, so on and so forth. So i have never told my dad about going into psychology. Last nite my dad ended our conversation with “just don’t tell me you’re going into psychology because only people with no plan for their life major in that.” i could not believe it!i got so upset (ending my happiness streak) and cried because my dad never supports me and he’s trying to guide me but all he does is hurt me! None of my friend’s dads do that and it’s not fair. What does he kno? he can’t get promoted in his stupid ass engingeering job bcuz he has a horrible eq!! he is so frustrating. my mom and i talked later on and she encouraged me to prove him wrong. (b4 that my dad did attempt to apologize and pretty much he sed the same thing but totally played it down!! how insensitive)

She is right. I try to encourage my students to do a couple of things when looking at a college. Specifically, I want them to walk around asking themselves these questions….

• Can I chase my dreams here?
• Can I see myself chasing God here?
• Is this a place I will be proud to graduate from?

To be honest… those things are more important than the question every parent wants to know, “Will my kid get rich when they leave this place? That is so annoying because it is an instant clash of culture. On the one hand there are naive kids who have big dreams and they really want to change the world. The flip side of that is a broken parent who’s only dream seems to be paying off a mortgage.

The happiest people I know are those who are still chasing their dreams. I want to churn out students who are “stupid enough” to think they can change the world. Why? Because Paul told us we were to be “world changers.” Religious people don’t change the world… But passionate followers of the risen Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit will change the world.