#BigParentingIdea — Why Don’t Most Young Adults Dream Big?
I don’t know if this is the biggest reason but I think it’s something that definitely counts as one of the major ones.
Parents and teachers. Teachers and parents. Plus other adults.
They’re just great at telling young people not to. They tell them to settle for an average life. That they’re not smart/ good/ intelligent enough. That they don’t have that thing/ that something.
Oh, c’mon! Don’t compare yourself to her. She is Beyonce.
You are not him or her/ this or that.
Oh, don’t be silly! Don’t compare yourself to them, they’re the smartest people on Earth!
You will never be him/ her.
True, we will never be somebody else.
But everyone of us can be great, too.
We can work each day toward becoming the best versions of ourselves. Best at our crafts.
It’s enough that we go all in on our strengths and accept our weaknesses. With unshaken belief in our abilities.
Joseph Schooling will never be Michael Phelps, ever. But he proved to the world that he can be great, too. He won gold over Michael Phelps during last year’s Olympics in Rio.
You are not this or that.
Don’t compare yourself to her, you’re not her.
You will never be her.
All of them are fine statements, but only if we add the following six words:
But you can be great, too.
Those words make all the difference.
Every time we fail to add them we kill our children’s will to achieve great things and thus huge potential is being flushed down the toilet.
Do they never encourage their kids / students? Of course they do encourage them. To be the best among the average. To have a well planned life, with safe careers that pay good money.
That’s not an environment where dreaming big can flourish.
Growing up in such conditions, we learn to say ‘no’ to ourselves before anyone else gets the chance to offer us his/ her ‘no’.
We all hear and read stories about rejections, and how those who succeed manage to go from one ‘no’ to the next ‘no’, without losing their enthusiasm.
Winston Churchill famously said
“Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.”
On the other hand, extremely rare (almost non-existent) are articles and books which tell stories of those who didn’t even ask. Who themselves rejected their own offer, idea or request before the other person/ party even had the chance to do it.
Why are they so rare?
Because those who reject their own offers, ideas or requests, who don’t believe they can get what they want, who assume it’s not even worth trying (because they “know” the outcome), they don’t get what they want. They don’t succeed.
And if we compared the number of people who get what they want in life (or most of what they want) and those who are stuck, helpless and always complain, we will realize that the stories of people who really got rejected (who had heard the word ‘no’ from others hundreds of times before they succeeded) are actually the truly rare stories.
Abundant (but untold), on the other hand, are the stories of those who never even allowed themselves to be rejected by the other person.
Thanks for reading! If you liked this article, here’s more.
Writing is my oxygen. I write every day. About parenting, career life and the challenges of being a young adult.
Each day I share my musings on my blog http://mygame.typepad.com.
You might consider subscribing to my newsletter which goes out once each day. In it you’ll receive my newest posts. No spam guaranteed. Promise!
You can also subscribe to my Medium Publications and receive an e-mail each time I publish a new story. Here they are:
I appreciate every second you spend reading my stuff!
- Lukasz

