Day Dream Believer

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As a kid I spent a lot of time daydreaming. Not enough to where I got into much trouble for it, but I always had plenty of time to let my mind wander and think of scenarios where I'd turn up the hero and get the girl and live happily ever after.

Leaving my phone behind yesterday was a good thing on one level. I was able to daydream a bit.

Not that I dreamt about being a hero or getting the girl, but just enough time to consider Elizabeth Taylor's death, and wonder about her life. (Why did the media only show her as a beautiful young girl? Where was the shots of the obese, worn-out version?)

I also considered the next book story idea and where I could go with that. I imagined the evening at home and planned out my next day's activity.

Then, when I got my phone back, I traded emails with a man who is a well-respected educator and I lamented that my kids certainly don't know the satisfaction in developing ideas and making up stories.

They have too much at the ready. In the world of ring tones and buzzes and alerts, not to mention the ringing phones, there isn't a lot to wait for or dream about now.

My kids don't go out of the house to play with their friends, but they play with them all afternoon and into the night as their game consoles are hooked-up. They laugh and joke and listen to rap, and handle the beeps and buzzes and alerts.

Ugh!

I remember daydreaming about running back into the school to save the entire class from peril. Of course, I was slightly injured as I leaped over a desk to rescue the prettiest girl in school, but it was all worth it when she planted one on my lips at the hospital and called me a hero.

Never happened, but as I considered that, way back then, I felt good. It made me aware that I could accomplish something!

(I could make up a story is what it amounted to).

But I'm not sure that kids have such an outlet today.

"Kids definitely daydream less," my educator friend said. "Too much stimulus right there through the buttons of their phones."

I'm thinking of making my kids do something creative. I'm going to see if they will put their controllers down long enough to make up a story.

Sam won't be a problem. That kid is a stimulation junkie.

I gotta' work on the other two slugs.

Nothing like a good daydream to pump up the old self-esteem, right?

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