Dream big rather than not at all

Washington Monument

People are disappointing, especially the ones we believe in the most.
We expect perfection from the imperfect. They have a set of ideals they choose to live by that we share. We hold them to a high standard and expect them to maintain those ideals. We do not allow room for failure or human weakness.
Too often we are harder on those who try to meet our expectations and come up short than those who disregard our ideals altogether. We expect more from people we admire and unrealistically place them on pedestals. When they let us down we become disappointed. In some cases we wonder why we believe in anything at all when the world is consumed with promises that are broken or intentions that are not met.
Often the same is true for the way we judge ourselves. We work hard by setting time lines and laying out a vision for our lives; when we don’t meet our goals, we believe we are failures. No matter what our intent might have been, we are human beings and cannot live up to the ideals we hold. We will always fall short in some way. But as human beings we have the ability to try to be better even while we falter along the way.
No matter how successful we become, our ideals can continue to develop.
People will let us down, and we ourselves will let others down. No matter how discouraged or beaten down we become we owe it to ourselves to dream a little too big rather than not at all, have too much faith rather than not enough. Because we fail does not mean that what we strive for is meaningless or that we are a hypocrite. It simply means we can see greater potential. We should not lower our standards. Our ideals may be unattainable, but we dream of them and we hope for them and we work for them. We should not give them up.
Why do we have these ideals that cannot be met? Why do we hold others to a standard we cannot keep? Perhaps the biggest contradiction of human nature is that our actions rarely match the vision that inspires us. As the poet Robert Browning said, “Ah but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for.”
The people we admire are those who strive to improve themselves. In the end their ideals help them become better and more successful. Too often we place limitations on our potential and let ourselves become complacent and discouraged. We are not meant to be satisfied with where we begin but by the accomplishments we make on our journey toward our ideals.
Politicians, pastors, teachers and community leaders – it doesn’t matter what the profession is; we all fall short. Our nation’s founders didn’t live up to the ideals they aimed for in the founding documents, and neither do we. But they recognized the ideal and wrote with the hope that future generations would attempt to move closer to that ideal and live by those aspirations. It is in the attempt that our lives are made better.