By now, you’ve probably heard that the baseball team The Chicago Cubs won the World Series for the first time in 108 years.  I live in Chicago and can tell you, the energy of the city has been absolutely electric.  The parade to celebrate their win smashed attendance records and was the largest gathering of humans in United States history, the seventh largest in human history.

What does this teach us about ourselves, especially in today’s political climate here in the States?

Here’s five things we might take away from the experience:

1. Hope springs eternal. If we believe a thing long enough, passionately enough, and work toward it enough, it will come true.

Hope springs eternal in the human breast;

Man never is, but always to be blessed:

The soul, uneasy and confined from home,

Rests and expatiates in a life to come.

– Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man

2. Go big, or go home. – Eliza Dushku

Don’t be afraid of dreaming big, because it’s worth it to stretch our ideas of what’s possible.

3. To dream big, we need to risk being laughed at. The Cubs were known as “the lovable losers.”  People loved to make fun of the hubris inherent in thinking they’d win a series.  Yes, it took time.  But so what?  From the ecstasy inherent in the city this past week, clearly the buildup was worth it.

4. As Julia Cameron, noted author and creativity specialist, says, do you know what age I’ll be by the time I learn to do [insert dream here]? Yes, the same age as you’ll be if you don’t.  There’s potent logic in that statement.

5. Keep at it.  The biggest lesson of taking 108 years to win the World Series is this:  the road to achieving our dream may take a long time.  It may take so long that the logic of pursuing the dream is lost.  No one else may believe in it with us.  But if we stay the course, if we keep believing and trying and working toward it, it will happen.  Maybe there’s a reason so many perseverance metaphors are from baseball:  the advice to “throw strikes,” or the anecdote of how many times Babe Ruth was at bat.  But what is the sum of all of this collected baseball wisdom?  It’s the lesson of continuing, of keeping going.  Keep on keepin’ on.

And nowhere is that more apparent right now than in Chicago.

So what about you, Dear Reader?
What might you do if you let yourself dream big?

—

“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.”
– E.E. Cummings

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