“Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.”– Harriet Tubman

These inspirational quips are easy to find as they roll along our feed like waves, but can easily hit the wall of our own stupid shit. I mean, do we honestly believe we can live out our dreams? Sure chosen folk like Oprah and Kobe seem to, and possibly my mother did, but what about you, or me? Can we push away doubt? Acquire a room of one’s own where we dare those dreams into action? I’ve known plenty of people with talent and possibility who crashed right into a waterfall of negative behaviors and let their own potential rush away. Maybe it’s the demons in their head, maybe it’s just their crap circumstances, regardless, they let their internal passions subside to a trickle. They put down the paint brush. They stop dancing. They quit imagining and believe something less about themselves, something more tragic. They’ve heard the sad tale so long they write one of their own.

What do you believe about yourself? Can you just pretend for one sunny moment that you are all that you envision you are? That the job you do is one that utilizes your full creative potential? That your future is in your own hands? Quite a mission if we feel tossed from day to day. But here’s the thing: why not choose to believe in the best outcome? I mean, seriously, what do you have to lose? Life is spinning by fast and then faster, so why not harness that rotation into your own glowing projection on this earth?

I know what you are up against. Whispers of “women can’t write, women can’t paint” have been heard even before Woolf penned those words in 1927. But even timid Lily defied that sentiment, right? Regardless of gender or age we can get trapped by societal misconceptions, from being the fat one or the stupid one or the talent-less one or just plain lazy and unlucky, we play out those limiting roles. Instead, how about we stand up to our own self-doubt as magnificently as Lily does in To the Lighthouse? “Yes, she thought, laying down her brush in extreme fatigue, I have had my vision.”

Flying away from the City of Angels is never easy for me.  My children live down there. And, besides the strings knotted between us, the city is built on dreams. Uber drivers write good screenplays. Waitresses are ready to hit the airwaves. Surfers design apps to cure loneliness. Seems everyone in Los Angeles is joined in believing in a vision beyond their current limitations. Over time, West Coast magic can break even hardened East Coast Northerns. Truly. Beyond Hollywood, there are garage bands making harmony and coffee shop plot lines and glittery dreams aplenty crisscrossing freeways. Even with Trump’s fatalistic fire and fury, one can reach for the stars here, believe in a better tomorrow, and let his improvisational rhetoric fall flat below. Maybe it’s the sunshine and palm trees, maybe it’s just a collective Los Angeles agreement that everyone should have the chance to change their world.

How about just for today you suspend your cynicism? The desperate voice in your chatter? Imagine something grander for your tomorrow. Be willing to turn off despair. Count your blessings. Start speaking out loud what you hold locked within. Believe we each have the ability to transform our dreams into reality if we follow our joy. Put that in your mind. Remember when all seems impossible. Joy. Latch onto that with me and together let’s dance right into a better world.