second year jennings brooks

What’s your dream of dreams? And not your dream job - that’s too cliche. But your dream of dreams. This is the one dream so important to you that you lock it in the depths of your heart. It’s the one thing you are most afraid to utter into existence because it identifies with the wildest most daring piece of your soul that you hold hostage in yourself. The fear of admitting it to yourself may be even more terrifying than whispering it to others.

My friend Dillon is a third year real estate major at SMU. His whole world is targeted at internships and getting the leg up in the business world. Except Dillon’s dream of dreams isn’t to be the top real estate broker in Dallas - it’s to be a freestyle skier, the kind not bound to slopes or paths or even snow. Dillon maybe skis two weeks a year and it doesn’t make sense for him to become a freestyle skier. It’s probably not the most attainable goal--but that’s what makes it his dream of dreams. It’s so crazy, so extravagant, and so revealing of his heart that it doesn’t even matter if it can’t be accomplished - what matters is it shows a spark of passion.

I’m a journalism major. I’m supposed to get an internship writing for my local paper or working in the communications department for some Fortune 500 company. I’m supposed to desire to work at CNN or The New York Times. If you asked me my dream job I would tell you about my passion for art history, food, and culture. I would rave about the communal act of sharing a meal with others. And then I would tell you that my dream job would be to travel the world - from Paris to Marrakech to Seoul - writing about different cultures through the lenses of cuisine and art. But if you were to ask me my dream of dreams, I would tell you something so different. It is my dream of dreams to find the softest grass in the world and just lay - be still for once in my life. To be present with myself and the force of nature that surrounds me.

To some it seems silly, but to me it feels just right - it’s me. It simultaneously explains my wild heart, my strong wanderlust, and my desire for the halcyon days of stillness.

Your dream of dreams can be wildly extravagant or extravagantly simple. It can be one passion or many interests. Your dream of dreams is yours to decide - it molds with your changing desires and submits to your whimsical ways. Your dream of dreams is the sliver of your heart that mirrors to the world just the person you are truly hiding. Let it be free.

Dream of Dreams