Someone else said it again today!  I heard the words, and still found them hard to believe.  Yet, over the last few years, I have heard the same thing from a number of people.  The young man came in to buy some guitar accessories, but stayed to talk.  It seems that he loves guitars and wants to learn to repair them.  After several moments in discussion of the activities I do here, he said the words.  “This would be my dream job!”

I wanted to laugh.  Dream job?  My mind went back to when I was a child in school.  The teacher asked what we wanted to be when we grew up.  Did I tell her that I wanted to own a music store?  Ha!  Not in the remotest corner of my mind did the idea of becoming a music store owner pop up.  I never in my life thought that I wanted to run a music store.  Never.  Why in the world would someone think that this would be their dream job?  But, people say this again and again to me.  I’m a little confused.

Tonight, just to be sure about my facts, I even checked the latest list of the top two hundred jobs in America.  Nope.  Music store proprietor doesn’t even make an appearance.  Garbage collector is on there.  Dental assistant made the cut.  You can even find mail carrier, corrections officer, and maid on the list.  No music store owner.  It doesn’t matter.

I still love what I do.  After thirty-five years, I can’t think of any profession I’d rather be in.  But, I never, ever dreamed of doing what I do for all of my adult years.  It wasn’t even a blip on the radar screen of my life’s blueprints.  Perhaps, I just wasn’t the dreaming kind of young man.  Maybe if I had tried, I would have been able to scare up some semblance of this life in my imagination.  Nah–never would have happened.

When the kid said the words earlier today, my reply to him was, “Mine too!”  I wasn’t lying.  Not now.  Over the years, I have come to realize that sometimes God just gives us the good things we failed to ask for, things we never knew we needed. After all, we read that every good gift is from above.  I’m pretty sure that a life spent loving what we do is a good gift.

We all have dreams.  But, more than that, we all have abilities.  It’s a wonderful thing when the abilities and the dreams mesh and our entire life becomes a dream come true.  Sometimes though, we are blessed enough to travel a divergent path, one on which we simply put our abilities into practice and, in the process, are led to a lifetime of fulfillment.

Perhaps we should compile our own list of dream jobs.  The experts would be surprised, wouldn’t they?  I know more than a few ladies who would insist that being a stay-at-home mother is the pinnacle of success.  I won’t disagree.  There is one fellow in my acquaintance who is a kind of picker and makes a living buying items at auction and selling them to various businesses and in flea markets.  He wouldn’t trade places with any man he knows.  Bicycle repairman?  Ditto.  Teacher?  No doubt.  The list would be extensive–and surprising.

I still have other dreams.  I’m not waiting for them until I go somewhere over the rainbow, either.  That’s not where dreams come true, in spite of what we may have been told.

Every good gift, and every perfect gift really does come down from above; coming down from the Father of Lights.

I think I’ll keep looking up!

“God’s gifts put man’s best dreams to shame.”
(Elizabeth Barrett Browning~English poet~1806-1861)

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.  What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.”
(Henry David Thoreau~American writer/philosopher~1817-1862)

© Paul Phillips. He’s Taken Leave. 2013. All Rights Reserved.

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