When I was seven,
I looked to heaven
and dreamed
of going to the moon
but pretty soon
somebody came along
to change
my tune.
They put me down.
Bang! There my dream lay
on the ground.
Thank God, eventually
I came around
and dreamed
another dream.
At first, it seemed
a good idea to hide it,
confide it
to absolutely no one.
But that was no fun,
besides, I realized
I couldn’t. The joy it gave me
just wouldn’t
be stopped up. It popped up
at the most
inconvenient times,
effervesced
in all of my rhymes.
But, hey! Joy is not a crime, though
some people
make it seem so.
Does anybody here know what I mean?
You share your dream
and right away
people laugh,
try to dissuade you,
do what they can to
plant a seed of doubt.
Listen: you’ve got to
root it out,
laugh last, push past,
pursue. Be you–
whoever that is–
And don’t look back.
Don’t look back.
Don’t look back.
And if you move,
remember: Pack your dreams.
They’re portable.
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How many times have you told someone about your latest decision to go on a diet, to exercise more, to go back to school. to change careers and have them laugh it off, or laugh at you? Having the people you love be unsupportive or actively working against you is one of the worst things that can happen. But the worst thing that can happen is if we give up on what we want. We have to have no doubts about what it is we want and that we can indeed achieve it. We have to accept the fact that there will be setbacks, but then we pick ourselves up, dust oursselves off, and dream another dream.