Seventeen year old Sean was ecstatic, his English teacher had given him an assignment he could handle for a change… an essay describing what he was going to do with his life!

School was not easy for Sean; he tried hard, but he just couldn’t seem to get a grade above a C no matter what he did, but this was something he knew. No doubt he could get an A for once in his career.

Sean gave much thought to this task, not about what he was going to say he knew that, but how was he was going to say it to earn that A?

He began his paper by describing the ranch property he was going to own one day. He followed that with verbal pictures of the pureblooded horses and the purebred cattle that would be stocked on his ranch. The barns and white corrals, the pastures with the split-rail fences and especially the ranch house with its surrounding veranda, these all flowed from his pen to the paper.

It took only an evening to complete the essay, a few minutes more to make the changes in grammar and punctuation his dad recommended. Sean was nearly ecstatic with hope the day the essay was due.

It seemed like months before his paper was returned and when he saw the huge red F circled at the top of the page he barely saw the note from his teacher that said, “See me after”.

With heavy heart and tremendous disappointment Sean listened to his teacher tell him that what he had written was not a goal for his life, but a pipedream!

“You have no way of fulfilling this dream of yours, Your father is just a day laborer and you are not college material. There is no way you will ever have what you’ve described and that is why I’ve given you the F. If you will rewrite this and submit something within reason, I will consider changing this F.”

Sean went home and talked to his father who, while he thought this was important, told Sean, “I want you to make your own decision on this. I will say that I think that your decision will be one of the most important you will ever make in your life.”

After an agonizing night, Sean approached his teacher the next day with his paper in hand, the large red F staring bleakly at him, and said, “After a lot of thought and a very sleepless night, I’ve decided that you can keep your F, for it is yours and I’ll keep my dream for it is mine!

Don’t ever let anyone steal your dream.

Live Your Dream!!