Timeless Dreams: What Preschool Graduations Teach Us About Life’s True Questions

Few, if any, can see into the future, but there is a way to glimpse its possibilities: by attending a preschool graduation. This week, I went to two such events.

Preschool graduations entertain. Kids, dressed to impress by their mothers, file to a stage and sing a song. The rehearsal had gusto, but the real thing was different. Now, in front of a crowd, terror shows on small faces as they search for the stress-stripped words.

But parents and grandparents, jockeying for the best picture, don’t care. All wipe away tears of joy with the paired loss of the years now passing.

But I also learn something from preschool graduations.

Children step onstage to get a diploma while a teacher describes them. Almost all ask, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

The answers vary, with new ones entering the mix. This year the new dream is “YouTuber.” Meteorologist and storm chaser (my grandson’s latest passion) join the staid doctor, fireman, and policeman.

In that moment, you witness a solemn event. The beginnings of dreams. They are a clean slate in which the world unrolls as a red carpet before them.

Dreams are fragile. In the children, you see the spirit of life and potential.

Yet, society has learned to crush dreams. The sledgehammer of “making money” replaces “making a difference.” We wish to do both. By high school, many dreams surrender to practicality and “financial prudence.” It takes a rebel to refuse this mold.

I saw little girls in frilly dresses and boys straight-jacketed into nicer clothes than normal and realized what life is about.

A single question embodies life’s entirety: “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

As you age, you realize that onion has many layers. First comes the practical issue of how you will survive.

Your Profession

What do you want to be when you grow up? What we are willing to trade for a paycheck tends to cloud our answer.

A job or career can make you miserable or fulfilled. A survey indicated that 70% of new lawyers wished they could do anything else. The velvet handcuffs kept them in a soul-sucking prison.

While social pressures shift our focus to the financial, it is crucial to remember that who we become is as important as what we do.

Your Character

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

The question hides the issue of character. What kind of person do you want to be? What are your values, and your ethics?

When I sit with families planning a funeral, I ask them a simple question. “If you could introduce your dad to someone who did not know him, what would you say?” That’s who you are, not what you do.

Are you honest? Caring? Compassionate? Demanding? Hard?

Character is the aroma left in the room after you are gone. You and I get to pick our own “signature scent.”

Warren Buffett, the billionaire “Oracle of Omaha” observed, “Write out your obituary and then try to live up to it.”

If you like who you are, you can do anything for a living. But if you don’t, the money will be a life sentence.

But there’s one more question buried in the preschool question.

Your Contribution

What do you want to be when you grow up? It opens another, “What contribution do you want to make in life?”

Everyone impacts the lives of those around you in some way. Some leave the world a better place than they found it while others fade into oblivion.

Parents mold children who go on to mold others. That’s a contribution. Lawyers can help grieving families reassemble the financial pieces strewn by death. My yard and neighborhood look better due to a worker who trimmed my trees and planted new grass.

Each has a niche that has changed the small corner of their world.

As the Randy Travis song Three Wooden Crosses reminds us: “It’s not what you take when you leave this world behind you, It’s what you leave behind you when you go.”

So this past week, I became the boy of 63 years ago, clutching a toy firetruck. I had left the comfortable cocoon of Mrs. Ireland’s preschool to leap into the world. And I realized that the question they asked my grandson was as valid for me as it was for him.

Throughout life, “What will you be when you grow up?” evolves, encompassing our dreams, our character, and our contribution.  It’s not a question posed to a 4-year-old. Each day we refine our answers, shaping not just our lives but our legacy.

So, what do you want to be when you grow up?