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Why and when we stopped dreaming big dreams?

I recently decided to add a new light to my backyard, so I visited a local hardware store where I bought the device I thought it will fit my needs. After installing the new device,  I returned my tools to my garage, where I found a similar lamp that I bought more than a year ago with the same purpose, but I have forgotten.

This insignificant incident led me to think how many times we don’t search what we already have because we believe others have the answers and solutions we are looking for, when in fact we already have and possess in us and with us what we need to accomplish our goals.

This materialistic society deceive us, leading us to believe the first reaction we should have to any need, problem, or desire is to go out to buy something, a product or a service, instead of using the resources we already have inside us and at our disposal.

Because we assume the answer is always “outside,” we have lost creativity and, being less creative, we lost our ability to think and dream big.

Consumerism generates that paradoxical mix of conformism and constant dissatisfaction that kills our dreams, making us believe the only value anything has is its economic value and the only way to live is inside the “market.”

However, there is no need to leave that way.

More than two decades ago, when he was a teenager, Herman Zapp promised his girlfriend, Candelaria, that if she married him, he would take her from Argentina to Alaska by car, driving a Graham-Paige automobile built in Detroit in 1928.

They got married and using that old car they did travel from one end to the other of the American continent, and they later travel through Oceania and Asia. The Zapps now have four children, so the old car has been modified to accommodate the whole family. (More details at www.argentinaalaska.com.)

Antonio Colon grew up in a dangerous area of New York. So dangerous, people told him in more than once occasion he would be killed before being 21. In spite of these unfavorable conditions, he wanted to become an astronaut. So, soon after graduation from high school he enrolled in the U.S. Air Force.

Colon eventually become an officer in the Air Force and completed his studies in aerospace engineering. He was also part of the Space Wing of U.S. Air Force. Today he is the owner of a multi-million dollar company providing training and training supplies for soldiers and law-enforcement personnel in the U.S. and in several other countries. And he is the 2010 Business Person of the Year in Colorado. (More details at www.combattrainingsolutions.com.)

Neither Zapp nor Colon allowed their circumstances to dictate their dreams. An old car was not a problem to drive from Argentina to Alaska. Growing up in Harlem was not an excuse not to achieve great professional, academic, and business accomplishments.

Let’s not allow anybody to steal our dreams. Let’s dream big!

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