The other night I was flipping through the channels and came across the movie The Rookie starring Dennis Quaid as 37-year old rookie relief pitcher Jim Morris, who was the oldest rookie ever to play in the MLB. It's a decent movie that I saw in the theater and have watched a few times since.

The most moving scene in the movie, for me, is when Morris learns he's being called up from AAA Durham to meet the Tampa Bay Rays team in Arlington for a game against the Rangers. Quaid's facials and voice really sell the importance of the moment and sum up well the accomplishment of a life-long dream. While watching it again over the weekend, I realized that I've never felt that sense of accomplishment. The feeling that Dennis Quaid was emoting through his acting was a foreign one to me, as it came to me that my trouble with relating to the moment came from my never having experienced an instance of great achievment and recognition. The real-life Jim Morris must have felt a sense of disbelief, even as he knew that moment was nothing more than the equation of a summary of actions. "Living his dream" occured as a result of killing the dream and using the sacrifice as a catalyst to create the reality.

So where is my sense of achievment? Where are the moments where my dreams met reality? One could say, with validity, that at 25 I'm still young and that my best days are ahead of me. I sure hope this is true. For many, though, dreams have already died by age 25. Life can beat you down in a hurry. I've met many people who had quit dreaming by their teenage years, subjecting their minds and hearts to a sort of gross existentiallism that they cannot put their fingers on. This often happens for those who grow up in an environment where dreams had also died early for their caregivers. It is a shame to me to think about children who have no desire to make more of themselves then what they are.

On the flip side, there are people who, by 25, are already living out their dreams. Athletes immediately come to mind. Lebron James is a year younger than me. Artists come to mind. Taylor Swift was considered a prolific songwriter at 17 in a music genre that rarely allows artists to write their own material. Mechanics come to mind. Carpenters come to mind. Contractors come to mind, as well as architects, business owners, etc.

So where do I fit in the grand scheme of things? On one side, I have never quit dreaming. On the other side, I have never put in the hard work and dedication to live out my dreams. I think my never feeling a sense of accomplishment attests more to a lack of dedication to get the job done than it does to a string of bad luck or bad nurturing. My parents never killed my dreams and never tried to. I got a free ride education on my way to a bachelor's degree. I've never had too much trouble finding work and finding my wife was an obvious choice for me. So much has come easy that I've never strived for my life to be over the edge.

I believe this applies to my relationship with God, as well. Those who seek godliness will suffer, and it's not the godliness that scares me off, but rather the suffering. It's the work.

Do you have what it takes to live a life that is beyond simply functional? I believe boredom, especially for the priviledged, is a self-inflicted misery. As for me, I will pursue the things that are hard, because from those things comes the moment of disbelief where I realize that everything I went through was worth it.