Fifty years ago this week the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. inspired a nation and a movement with his "I Have a Dream" speech in Washington, D.C. All profound destinations as a world and as individuals start with a dream or a vision, not with a timeline or logistics or tactics.
Too often we focus too much on logistics and not enough on the values that bind us together and the dreams we have. We get so bogged down in the steps and process that we forget that to live is to have a dream and without one we struggle through the days of our lives.
Maybe now is a good time for each of us to focus on our dream, and tell others what that is. We don't need to tell it to hundreds of thousands on the Washington Mall, but we can start with just one person. It is when we share our vision or dream with another or others that we begin to make it a reality, as Dr. King did 50 years ago. Setting our intention should always be the North Star that guides us on our way.
Here is my humble attempt at laying out this Detroit man's dreams done in a top ten format.
I have a dream that:
1. We will see strength in gentleness and kindness, and power in love.
2. We will see honor in humility and courage in compassion.
3. We will see small acts as big things and big things as small.
4. We will fight our loneliness and fears with a commitment to intimacy and real connection.
5. We will see the power of play and the healing from laughter and realize it is children that can teach us most about living and what is sacred.
6. We will be serious about deep values and the direction of the world without taking ourselves too seriously.
7. We will celebrate and honor the divine feminine and masculine in each of us, and the mothering and fathering that this world so desperately hungers for.
8. We will see the value of simple gifts, and the cost from not offering a helping and open hand.
9. We will see the light and meaning that comes from our truth, and the darkness and fears that come from secrets.
10. We will have the faith to hope, and the hope to love, and the love to have faith in each other and ourselves.
This is my dream, delivered not from the Lincoln Memorial but from the living room of a home in Austin, Texas. What is your dream? Take a moment and share it with us.
There you have it.
Originally posted on ABCNews.com