I think Randy Pausch was able to achieve so many of his childhood dreams because early on he decided to go for them. By this I mean when the opportunity to fulfill them happened to come along he put everything he had into making it happen for himself. This allowed him to achieve many of his dreams when others tried to tell him it was impossible. It is inspiring that he could accomplish so many of these childhood dreams when so many of us would have walked away from them when roadblocks were put in front of him.
I do feel that dreaming is important because dreamers can make some of the best entrepreneurs. Dreamers have a different way of looking at something and when everyone tells them that something can’t be done they can still believe that it could be done differently. I say this with a dose of skepticism because if we do nothing but sit around and dream about how things can be different then the dreams will never have a chance to be acted upon. If we never take any action to implement our dreams then they can never come to fruition. I abhor the idea of just sitting around and “manifesting” things to be better or different.
One of my childhood dreams would be to go to space. I think at some point we all dream of being an astronaut but the path to get there back then was far more complicated. When I was a kid I could have never imagined that someone could pay to go to outer space. This was never even a thought on the radar of anybody. I do believe that this could be a possibility for me during my lifetime. However, this will very likely be dependent on me being able to afford the trip.