A Lesson From The Kid

What did you dream about when you were a kid?

Bruce Willis plays the adult Rusty (Russ) Duritz in the movie, “The Kid”. Giving credit to the Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com) the main premise reads:

"Russ Duritz is a wealthy L.A. image consultant, but as he nears 40, he's cynical, dogless, chickless, estranged from his father, and he has no memories of his childhood. One night he surprises an intruder, who turns out to be a kid named Rusty, almost 8 years old."

That kid is Russ himself. I love his eight year old summary of his 40 year old self.

“So, I'm forty, I'm not married, I don't fly jets, and I don't have a dog? I grow up to be a loser.”

Are you the person you imagined you would be? Are you living the life you dreamed when you were a kid? Would the eight year old “you” say you grew up to be a loser?

What did you dream about back then? Did you have a poster of a minivan (black light poster, of course!) on your bedroom wall? Did they even make posters of cubicles and credit card debt? Did you surround yourself with such images? NO!

Most guys had the Ferrari - or your favorite Italian car ending in a vowel - along with sports heroes, a favorite band, and perhaps a dream girl or two.

The girls rooms? Perhaps posters of the latest teen heart throb, perhaps a hero. Maybe the room was filled with dolls, princesses, cheerleading trinkets and prom bouquets. Perhaps a musical instrument or a favorite sport.

Memories intertwined with dreams for the future. Not to belittle where life led us, but does it match the life we imagined? Is it a life we actively created, or what simply happened? What would you tell the eight year old you?

Looking back doesn’t change anything. Unless we learn something, and it changes our thinking. And if we leverage that new thinking to take different actions.

If you stay on your current course, where will you be in five years? Do you like those results? What does that mean ten years will look like? If you could shape that future self, create your dream life, what would you do?

If the “you” five years from now could speak into your life today, what would you say? What would you tell yourself to do, starting today? What would you beg yourself to stop doing, today?

Do you hear what you are saying?