She Bought Her Son a Guitar

In my previous post, I wrote about enabling the dreams of others. Then later that night I went to get a massage. My friend at the massage spa said that they had opened a new branch so I went there. My masseuse was someone I had never met before and we chatted during the massage. Near the end she told me that her son loved music. She said he failed some high school classes last term because of his great interest in the guitar outweighing his interest in pretty much anything else. Then she revealed that after his guitar was "borrowed and never returned" by his friends, she bought him a new one for his birthday. As soon as she said that, the bells started ringing inside of me.

That act of buying her musically gifted son a guitar for his birthday is an excellent example of enabling the dreams of others. Maybe the fact that I had just written about this earlier in the day made it all the more synchronistic and connected-feeling, but this really struck an A-major chord with me. I told the mom what I thought about her act of buying her son a guitar. And I asked if I could take her photo to share it alongside the story on my blog.

Here is a picture of that dream-enabling mom. Actually she said this was the 2nd guitar she had bought him. That's two times she played an enabling role in the development of her son's dreams.

I would say that a parent's role is to support the dreams of the child. Many parents feel they have to guide their children towards careers that make a lot of money. This is their way of looking out for their child because they want the kids to have some kind of security. And financial security is the one that seems most useful. But sometimes in that push towards getting the children into a job that they may or may not even like, the kids' dreams are ignored. They're put in the background. But within the seed of a dream lies the unique individual potential of that person. And that potential is important if we are to reach self-realization. 

I don't know about many unhappy doctors or lawyers who are self-realized. Unhappiness usually propels change and can lead to self-realization but they exist in different phases along the soul's journey. By no means am I suggesting that all doctors and lawyers are unhappy. But the idea is that these are typical examples of the kinds of jobs many parents would get their kid to do in order to have security. However not many people are cut out to be a doctor or lawyer. I would want my doctor to be someone with abundant health, radiant energy, and a joy for healing others. I can't imagine a sick person healing other sick people. It's great when someone is called to be a doctor but it's far from greatness when someone is forced to be one. The latter is a prescription for unhappiness.

People should be allowed to follow their calling. It is only natural. In my own life, I am happy that my parents never forced me to go into a certain job. They were just adamant about me finishing university but let me make the choices around it. I studied what I wanted, changed my major twice until I had found something that I really liked. And later I chose a job in the same field. My dad did support my dreams in his own way and actually that deserves a whole post for itself. And my mom has been supportive in her own way as well. For that I'm thankful. 

But enabling the dreams of others goes further than just relationships parents have with their kids. I have to admit, that the parental relationship is one of the most important we'll have but not the only relationship we'll have. Siblings, cousins, and other family members can also be supportive of each others' dreams. Friends can also do that. Teachers can also be enablers of the dreams of their students. So the question we need to ask is how we can enable the dreams of the people in our lives? Sometimes there's no guitar we can buy them because their dreams revolve around something else. We can be facilitators of conscious dialogue. We can support them with our words and give examples from our own experiences to inspire them. We can bring them to meet likeminded and relevant people. We can buy them books about their dream theme. We can inspire them to take the right action. In what ways are you guided to enable the dreams of others?