Creating a life of meaning

In my opinion, life is so much more meaningful if we work as hard as we can to succeed and serve others. Our Heavenly Father sent us here to learn and grow and we have the choice to do that with a positive or negative attitude. It may seem easier to do things our own way, but we will quickly learn that Heavenly Father has a plan for each an every one of us. I have a quote in my house as a reminder of this. Neal A. Maxwell said "Faith in God includes faith in His timing". This is sometimes hard, but we will be be blessed if we remember that He truly wants the best for us. There is also a nod at this in the book "The Ministry of Business" by Steven A. Hitz.

In trying times in our lives, we can remember that it is part of His plan for us and use it as a learning experience. We must get back on our feet and try again, refusing to give up. In Randy Pausch's Last Lecture, he says "brick walls are there for a reason: they let us prove how badly we want things". I thought this was a great perspective to have because trials in life are inevitable, but how we get past these trials, or brick walls, is our choice. If we want something bad enough, we can work harder and make it happen!

Why do you think Randy Pausch was able to achieve so many of his childhood dreams?

To start, I love that Randy talked about how much he appreciated that his parents allowed him to be creative. I'm sure that played a huge part in his confidence and ability to succeed. As I already quoted above, he obviously believed in learning from your trials and setbacks and choosing to not giving up. With that kind of perspective, achieving your dreams is both challenging and fun. Randy wanted to build something for Disney after a trip to Disneyland as a child and even after being denied a job, he kept pushing until they ultimately said yes. 

Do you feel that dreaming is important? Why or why not?

Dreaming is definitely important. Settling goals based on our deepest dreams keeps life fun and keeps our progress moving forward instead of backwards (even if it feels like we are moving backwards sometimes!). If we are always working towards a dream, we have motive to keep going and to do well. 

One of my childhood dreams was to have a large family. I loved the idea of organized chaos, more love than I knew what to do with and always having something going on. Now that I'm an adult and married with three kids, I still have that dream and it still feels attainable. While the reality of how exhausting and expensive raising children is has sunk in, it will always be a priority of mine. The sacrifices I make for my family are worth the time and effort and I know I'm doing important work.