Don't give up on your dreams

Mike this is for you :)


Coffee Shops and Small Talk an editorial by John Crist

Everyone needs a place to gather their thoughts. Mine is a coffee shop where I can go and be alone. I can sit there, surf the free wireless Internet, drink a $2 cup of black coffee and only hear one couple talking in a restaurant full of people. It’s perfectly safe. I’m around people, but I’m not. I can make small talk if I want, but mostly I just keep to myself. It doesn’t matter who I am or why I came. As long as I pay for my coffee, I’m welcomed in. I like this environment so much, in fact, that I just dropped off my application at a coffee shop down the street from my house.

I graduated from college in December. So far, I have no idea what I want to do. Actually, that’s not true. I know exactly what I want to do, but the distance from here to there seems so long. I want to be a songwriter. Does that sound strange? When I say it, I feel like a man clinging onto a boy’s dream. But it’s a dream I can’t escape. At every job interview or search on monster.com, there is music, being played like a trump card. I don’t know if I have the means or the ability to do it. Does God put dreams in us? I’ve heard that He does. Did He put this one in me? I don’t know how to answer that. And what happens if I try and fail? To make matters worse, while I am debating about what God’s call sounds like, my friends (who used to be single and independent) are getting jobs and spouses. I’m reminded of a line in a Keane song, Everybody’s changing and I don’t feel the same.

We all, of course, dream big. My brother’s big dream is to be a father and a husband. My good friend Julie wants to counsel pregnant women. Lexa wants to be a writer. I want to be a musician. So what stops us? At some point we become afraid. Afraid of losing what we already have, afraid of looking stupid. The past stings us in ways that we didn’t expect, and we cover up. Then come the compromises. We confuse the means with the end. That’s what the coffee shop application is: a means to an end. There, I could make some money but not be tied down. I could have a job but not have to work from 9 to 5. I could still try music but not have to rely on selling CDs as my only source of income. For those of us who dare to dream, it would be so easy to settle for the means. Don’t. Sometimes you have to do the things you don’t want to do in order to try the things you want—just make sure you remember which is which.

For three years I didn’t tell anyone about my dream to write music because I was terrified of someone thinking it was stupid. It sounds trivial, I know, (and it is), but when we think we’ve dreamed too big, we expect everyone to tell us where we went wrong. The dangers are clear, so we start to choose a different path, an easier path. One filled with coffee shops and small talk. We become so afraid sometimes that we end up doing nothing. Try and fail or try and succeed. Just don’t abandon your dreams.

If we believe that God gave us these dreams, we have to pursue them without compromising. Despite the danger and despite the risk, we must move forward. Maybe it’s not supposed to be simple and easy. The Israelites had the desert, Jesus had the cross, and Paul had his beatings. Maybe the end result is validated by the battle you took to get there. God is a mystery. I’m not claiming to understand Him or how He moves, but if you honestly believe that something is a godly desire, you need to fight for it—like panning for gold through dirt. If you don’t see how God could be glorified through it, question why you are after it in the first place.

I know I have to play my songs. I have to because if I don’t, I’ll be an old man wondering why I didn’t. I have to at least give it a try. There are risks when you follow your dreams, but there are greater dangers if you don’t. When my hair is gray, I don’t want to be wondering why I didn’t give it a shot. We just have to hold our breath, count to three and jump. So here we go. And with enough work, you might see me touring your city in my little Toyota Camry sometime soon. Or you might not. I can deal with either one. But at least I will know on my dying day that I was, at one point, a musician.

[John Crist is a musician currently living in Columbus, Ohio. You can hear his music at www.johncrist.com or www.purevolume.com/johncrist.]