Dear Kid,

There are dreams and then there are dreams.

For example, there’s the dream I had last night where one of Dad’s buddies talked Dad into painting his (Dad’s) face just before a really big really important meeting and Dad looked awful (the paint was semi-permanent) and the two of them made a colossal mess of the kitchen and the living room and I was beyond furious. Beyond beyond furious. There was green paint everywhere. I have no idea what Dad did to make my subconscious so angry but I was shaking pissed off.

Dreams are today’s answers to tomorrow’s questions.  ~Edgar Cayce

There are puppy dreams, but that’s not really what I’m talking about today.

There are the dreams we “dream” when we’re awake. Dreams of the unattainable. Like dreaming of being a huge rock star when you can’t sing a single note on key. Or of being an NBA star when you’re 5’ 2” and have the athleticism of gefilte fish.

There are the dreams we reach for, that we work toward. The dreams of inventing the next great technology. The dreams of finishing a marathon. The dreams of getting that job or fitting into that dress.

Some people would argue that some of these aren’t dreams. They are fantasies or aspirations. To them I say, “Stop arguing and go get your own blog.”

College is a great time for dreaming all kinds of dreams. It’s a great time for thinking about the “what if”. It’s a great time to set crazy high goals (because you can reach them). More importantly, it’s a great time for practicing the work ethic, the drive and determination, to reach those dreams.

Who knows? Maybe you’ll even invent a way to take the green face paint out of the carpet in my dream.

Keep dreaming, kiddo.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

Once upon a time there was a deadline. It wasn’t a deadline far off in some mysterious future. Those can be easily ignored. One can put those off until tomorrow even though it would be better to get to them today. It wasn’t a faux deadline, self-imposed to give the illusion of urgency. No, this was an Imminent Deadline and it Loomed.

Imminent deadlines have a way of looming that is quite unlike any other kind of looming. There is no warp and no weft. There is just great, hulking looming. In fact, imminent deadlines often loom with malice. And hostility. Sometimes even with hostile malice.

This particular Imminent Deadline loomed with more hostility and more malice than most.

And it Smirked. It was a hostile, malicious, smirking sort of Deadline whose vocabulary consisted mostly of “mwahhahahahaha” and the theme from Jeopardy!

You might think it was deadline for a college assignment. You’d be wrong. Those sorts of Imminent Deadlines are generally mainlining Starbucks and cursing Higher Education in multi-syllabic (albeit meaningless) words.

You might think it was a deadline for a work assignment. You’d be wrong again. Those sorts of Imminent Deadlines are generally accompanied by visions of the unemployment office and spreadsheets with circular logic.

You might think it was a deadline for voting. You’d be wrong there too. Those deadlines are used to being ignored and generally skulk along near the voting precinct hoping someone will notice even if it’s only an eager journalism student.

You might then think it was a deadline for a college application. It wasn’t, because it was the wrong time of year for those deadlines.

You might consider the possibility of a Deadline associated with some sort of Ultimatum. Those Imminent Deadlines can be quite terrifying. Their bite has been known to cause all kinds of paralyzation.

This was a deadline for a blog. And it Lurked. And it Loomed. And it radiated Hostility.

It is worth noting that almost no heat is generated by a Lurking and Looming Deadline except upon those who are being Lurked and Loomed at. So while deadlines are terrible for generally heating up a home, they are quite clever at lighting a fire under someone’s posterior.

History has noted that many attempts have been made over the years to deal with Imminent Deadlines. One way is to simply ignore the deadline. However, since deadlines are distantly related to hangovers, it will not surprise you to learn that they (deadlines) hate being ignored and will do their utmost to bring themselves to the forefront of the conversation.

Throughout time, the most popular method for dealing with a deadline has been to turn over and go back to sleep. This is sometimes a slightly effective method for dealing with hangovers, but pretty much never gets rid of a deadline.

It turns out that there are two effective methods for dealing with a Lurking and Looming Deadline full of Hostility and Malice.

The first is to become so wildly popular and successful that you become the Boss of All Deadlines. This almost never happens between the time the Deadline begins Lurking and the actual Deadline in question.

The other way is to simply Deal with It.

The third way (I love how Douglas Adams counts and may use his approach exclusively from now on. Or I might not) is to write a blog about them. This not only addresses the actual Deadline itself, but serves to flatter the Lurking and Looming so much that they sit down like obedient puppies waiting for a snack.

I hope you have nothing Lurking or Looming on your horizon today.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

Five frogs are sitting on a log. Four decide to jump off. How many are left? Five, because deciding is different than doing.

It’s easy to decide we’re going to do something. It’s even easy to say we’re going to do it and really believe we’re committed. We can decide to start eating better—until we get a whiff of pizza at lunch. We can decide to work out daily—only to postpone a trip to the gym when other commitments get in the way. We can say we’re going to start saving money—only to “invest” in the latest iPhone rather than a savings account.

It’s easy to decide all those things. It’s easy to say all those things. It’s easy to really, truly, seriously, for realz mean it. But committing, really following through, really doing what we say we’re going to do is often not nearly as easy.

Here are five tried and true tips for reaching your goals.

Tell someone. The fancy term is having an accountability partner. Just as it’s harder to skip the gym if you’re meeting a workout buddy there, if someone knows you’ve committed to a goal—and checks in with you on a regular basis about it—you’re less likely to find an excuse to slack off. Note: Your accountability partner should probably not be your mother.

Keep track. Whether it’s an app to help you track workouts, an excel spreadsheet to track your savings goals, or a hand-written chart showing how many pages you have to study to get through all the material before finals, having a chart is a visible way to see your progress. Because it’s right there in front of you, it can be a not-so-gentle nudge to get studying—and a great reminder of all you’ve done so far.

Ask for help. We all have our strengths and not-so-strengths. For example, some of us are hilarious while others of us can kick a football directly through the uprights in snow and rain and heat and gloom of night flickering lights (extra points if you get the reference). If you need help memorizing French verbs, find someone who can help with that in exchange for learning computer programming (trade), money (tutoring), or an introduction to that girl down the hall (matchmaking).

Set small deadlines. If you have to memorize War and Peace before next Monday, set small goals and deadlines to get the work done. Don’t try to learn the entire thing at once. Determine how much you have to learn (a lot), how much time you have to learn it (not much), and what other obligations may take up time (eating, sleeping, going to class). Then allocate the workload: 10 pages before dinner, 15 pages by 8pm, 12 more pages by 11pm, review all before bed. By reaching your small deadlines you can be sure you’re on track to get all the work done. (When you are in the workforce you’ll do the same thing and call it Project Management.)

Reward yourself. Figure out what will motivate you and use it as a reward for doing something that is difficult. Did you go for a workout when you really, Really, REALLY didn’t want to go? Treat yourself to a new mascara or a new song for your iPod. Did you outline 10 pages of history when you would rather have poked your eyes out? Take an hour and go for a run. Did you memorize 22 formulas for chemistry? Hmmm, that deserves a big reward…call your mother (could there possibly be a better reward?)!

Most importantly, don’t give up. Remind yourself how important your goal is and keep working toward it. You CAN do it.

Love, Mom

An inscription on the James Farley Post Office in New York City reads:

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.

This is not the creed of the USPS as they don’t have one. It is a translation (by Professor George Herbert Palmer of Harvard University) of Herodotus (a Greek dude known for being the correct answer to difficult questions) describing the Persian system of mounted postal carriers ca. 500 B.C.E.

ca. is the abbreviation for circa which is Latin for “about” or “approximately.”

BCE stands for Before the Common Era, which means counting backwards from what we generally refer to as Year 0. One has to wonder how people back then knew to count backwards. Do you think they worried about getting to Year 0 they way we worried about Y2K? Oh, wait. You were a baby then and didn’t care.

But you probably knew all that.