I would be very careful about making statements like this, Zita. This isn’t the case. Nobody is a bigger fan of dreams than I am, because I live them daily, but this kind of claim begs a challenge.

I no longer believe this, for one simple reason. As you lay out in your article, the process is long, the road can be arduous. Far too many folks are a lot more invested in shortcuts and loopholes to get to the goodies rather than the mapping and planning, the committing, the failures, the work, the sweat, the frustrations. The latter, of course, is what is far more likely to us get there.

A goal is a dream with a date on it. Good goals are often written using the SMART formula. The R stands for realistic. I didn’t say downsize. And I didn’t say minimize. But we have to start with something that has a chance in hell of happening. Not other’s opinions, but ours.

I sat in an audience last October listening to an Hispanic girl talk about how she spoke up when some teacher asked what their dream was. She said, I want to get my PhD. He looked at her icily. She was on stage, getting acknowledged for getting her PhD. But she did the work. To your point. She did precisely what you laid out in your article.

That was her True North, what I call the Bird in Your Chest. But if it doesn’t speak to you, you will not do the work. It’s not worth it.

I think it’s important to dream big, but also dream SMART.

I just signed up to climb Kilimanjaro again, next February. I’m already in training in my head, and I have damned little time to prepare. But I’m going. It’s realistic. Not guaranteed, but not a bad dream either. This second time entails more challenges because I have had more injuries, some of them serious. It’s not out of the question, it’s one hell of a stretch, but it’s within the realm of possibility. By my measure that’s a good dream.

I am willing to do the work. No loopholes, no shortcuts. It’s a long, long, long way up. I know what it feels like up there when you’ve earned it.

All dreams are not available to all people. But the right dream- what you speak of as True North- is available, but not if we want the easy way. If it were that easy, we’d all do it. Then it wouldn’t be a dream. It would be commonplace, about as useful as a used toilet tissue.