Here is the basic question: What do we do when our dreams are larger than our means to achieve them? This is a fundamental life question, a realistic one given the economy, and also a key to child raising.

When I was 8 years old or so, my parents sat us kids around the table to make up a wish list for the holidays. When it was my turn to answer the question of what I wish for, my eyes lit up and I gushed out “A Lamborghini!” An uncomfortable silence ensued, and I suddenly felt a twinge of shame. Perhaps my request was completely unrealistic. Sure enough, the holidays came and went, and I don’t remember any of what was offered in celebration, but it had nothing to do with any Lamborghini.

This shame, a sense of having imposed on my parents with an unrealistic wish has stayed with me in some sense through to adulthood. How could I have not known how unattainable such a thing would be to the average family? However, now having sat with that question for a number of years, I have a different answer.

To an 8 year old, how much can they really know about what a Lamborghini is? Can they drive one? They certainly can’t afford one. At the time, all I knew was that it was a super cool super fast race car. I didn’t even really know what they looked like if you told me to choose one from group of race cars.

It was super cool. It was super fast, and it excited me to think of its power. Cool. Fast. Powerful. That was the energy I needed at the time, and was not provided. Energy and the meaning behind the forms of our wishes are the true gift, and they are not limited by any lack of material resources. If my parents had at the time offered a Lamborghini matchbox car, a Lamborghini shirt, race car pajamas or anything that provided the ENERGY I was looking for, I would have been fulfilled.

So, to my inner child I have offered all kinds of SYMBOLS of what a Lamborghini is. I have dressed that little boy in race car clothes and given him little things to play with that are super fast and super powerful in his eyes, and VOILA! My childhood is completely healed (with a smirk!)

So in my parenting, I resolve to be cognizant of the intangible energy behind the sometimes far flung stories and wishes of the little amazing beings around me. I am determined not to think in such a small minded way – that a child’s dreams are unattainable because I don’t have the money to provide it, because if I can provide a symbol of that wish and give them something to interact with in any way that fulfills the energy behind the wish, I will have done my job.

Now that I am writing, of course it is so clear that this strategy is applicable to the dreams of grown children – adults! Coming into adulthood has a way of squashing the childhood dreams out of the mind and heart. Failures, reality checks – or otherwise making decisions out of necessity rather than high thinking – take the enthusiasm away from fanciful imagination. But does it really have to?

I will spend some time thinking about my childhood dreams, and my adulthood dreams – all of the things I truly and deeply wish for in life. Then, I will find something to symbolize its fulfillment on a scale that is truly attainable and serve as a reminder of the reasons why I had dreamed such a wonderful thing. I will keep that reminder nearby and treasure it, that one day its energy will attract more of the right timings, people, places and opportunities to truly be real and truly manifest into reality, despite myself.