A fellow “baby boomer” commented to me recently, “I guess we’ve all abandoned our dreams by now.”  I immediately reacted by saying, “Speak for yourself.” I for one can’t imagine abandoning my dreams.  Am I odd in that regard?  Am I naïve?  Am I different from my generation in that I’m still an optimistic dreamer?  Or was the fellow who made the remark the odd one?

I’m not quite sure if my hopeful outlook has to do with who I am, or is a trait of my culture as an American or I’m the product of the generation I grew up in?  I suppose my hope stems from all of the above.  I read an article in the May 20^th edition of Time Magazine, entitled the ME ME ME generation – the Millennials.  Part of the article talked about basic broad stroke traits of other generations.  Generally I don’t like broad stroke summations of a culture or a generation but nevertheless I found some of the descriptions to be pretty much on target.

As far as being “hopeful” the Millennials are more in kin to the Baby Boomers, and tend to believe in themselves and the power of realizing their dreams.  They seem to be more interested in what they can do and on a global scale than Generation X, which came before them.  Sadly, Generation X came up at time when “greed was good”, “heroin chic” was a style in vogue and ennui ruled the day.  Those are pretty broad strokes for sure, but I think the over riding thread that seems to define a generation is whether they tend to be hopeful or not.

I find that I always need to be creating something.  It’s what gets me up in the morning.  It’s what gives me hope.  It’s also what every single person possessed who took part in our film project.  They all believed that they were doing whatever was in their power to do and that gave them hope.  Of course the key is in the doing and that is why I love to create.

Think about it.  You can either give yourself reasons NOT to do something or you can give yourself reasons TO do something.  Giving yourself reasons not to do something may seem like it empowers you but it actually leaves you powerless.  It puts your destiny in everyone else’s hands.  That rarely yields hope.  The act of doing something, on the other hand, creates possibility.

The universe holds possibility for anything and everything to happen – we just need to put things into motion to allow them to happen.  Nine out of ten things might not work out but that doesn’t mean they didn’t play a part in the process.  It doesn’t mean they didn’t have value.  Perhaps the value will be realized later on.

“If you want a happy ending, it depends on where you stop the story.”

Orson Welles

It’s not easy to hold onto your ideals, let alone your dreams as you get older.  I suppose I should consider myself lucky in that regard, that I have managed to stay true to my ideals and I’m still foolish enough to believe in my dreams.  I wish more people my age had. Maybe we’d have a better world.

Dreaming is usually left up to the young, who can’t even imagine that their dreams wouldn’t come true.  Somehow when you get older, you give up on some of your dreams.  It seems like in our culture, we buy into the notion that with the responsibilities that come with age, there is no room for our dreams. I must tell you though, that I’ve always felt that if I couldn’t hold on to my own dreams – how could I ever teach my daughter how important that is, for a life well lived.

When my daughter Erin and I set out around the world together two years ago,  it was to film the stories of people who were doing extraordinary things.  These were all ordinary individuals who believed in the impossible.  The film was inspired by Erin’s high school friend, Maggie Doyne, who opted not to head straight off to college after graduation.  Maggie traveled and wound up in Nepal helping children, orphaned by ten years of civil war.  Seven years later, Maggie lives with her 40 children, in a home she built in Nepal, has built a primary school and is now raising money to build a high school.

Maggie is 25 years old with wisdom beyond her years and a youthful spirit to believe that anything is possible. She reminds me of myself when I was her age, although I pale in comparison to what she has done at such a young age.  I too traveled when I was just starting out in life.  I left college after two years and circled the globe to satisfy my curiosity. When I returned, I went back to school to study photography, graduated and set out to make my living at commercial photography.  My heart was in photojournalism and documentary photography, but everybody told me that I couldn’t make a living doing that kind of work – and I believed them.

Early on, I was looking for assistant work in NYC and I went to see legendary NY photographer, Jay Maisel.  I brought my perfectly executed commercial photography portfolio with me to get Jay’s advice.  For some reason, I also brought some “snapshots” that I had taken on my trip around the world, before I had gone to photography school.  Jay looked at my portfolio and tossed it back to me saying “this is crap”.  After seeing the shock on my face, he said, “this isn’t what you want to do, is it?” I showed him my snapshots and he said, “this is what you want to do – why aren’t you doing it?” I proceeded to tell him all the reasons that people had told me, and I was telling myself, why I wasn’t following the path I was passionate about.  He looked at me and he asked, “How old are you?”  I replied 25.  And he said, “You’re 25 and you’re already making compromises?”

There have been many days since then, when I have wanted to throw my hands up and give up on my ideals and dreams and then I remember that day with Maisel and I think about people like Maggie – and I manage to hold on.