“The Poorest Person In The World Is The Person Without A Dream”

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The topic above is a quote credited to the late Rev. Dr. Myles Munroe.  I decided to write about it today because I believe that the saying is completely true.  In fact, I know that it is true.  I know this from what my life has become.  I have not reached my personally felt potential yet which means I might be one hundred years behind my real potential.  However, how my life have turned out thus far in the which I believe I am on a journey, I credit completely to the dreams I kept having about what lives I could live or attain from very early in my childhood.

I can remember today, thoughts and dreams I held of myself many years ago back when I was still in my small and still obscure village.  I know I read a lot of books as a pre-teen and as a teenager.  Aged about nine years when the Biafran secession war broke out in Nigeria, some distant relatives had come home from the city and having no place of their own in the village, they sojourned with our family.  A number of them were in the University at that time.  They had several books which they came to our house with.  They must have owned a great library.  It was a great harvest for me as I have loved books all my childhood.  Many of such books my peers warned me I should not read because they could make someone mad.  I bet I really got pleasantly maddened by those books.  Because then, even when up to my eighteenth birthday, I had not visited any township not talk of a city, I had dreams of leading great civilizations, being at the head of a large group of people who follow me and I give directions of how their lives could be great.

Even while working as a Sales Representative for a company out of Enugu, South-East Nigeria, I would, while traveling through the wide expanse of unoccupied lands in the North of Nigeria, dream and imagine myself acquiring acres and acres of unoccupied land, setting up my own city on it, making my own rules of righteousness and goodness.  I saw in my mind’s eye, thousands of people who have signed a charter to live according the laws of righteousness and goodness that I have made and we had effective security systems that ensured that no intruders are able to attack the city.

I had more dreams that were really wild and in the realm people who do not fancy dreams would consider abnormal.

I also had several great dreams of doing great good in the society I found myself.  I dreamed of great wealth which principal purpose was to use the power that comes with such wealth to help and support those who are not as fortunate as I was in those dreams.

As a child, I was totally unsatisfied by the status quo.  I continuously yearned for new adventures, continuing change and progress.  I desired and dreamed about having limitless power to help affect the mind of humanity so that it has more empathy, more faith, hope and progress.

I feel that I owe my life today to my Heavenly Father first and secondly to the dreams of what good I could do and be in my life.  Every fulfillment that I have had in my life had come as a result of the minutest part of those my dreams coming to pass in my life with each passing day.

I feel that my Heavenly Father had dealt with me more specially than others.  But God is not partial.  He gives to all men liberally and upbraids not as He revealed through the Prophet Joseph Smith2.

Many of my peers have had more riches in materials things than me in our lifetime.  However, my life have been one of steady ascent while I have seen these many of my peers acquire a lot of riches and lose them and sometimes, unfortunately their lives in the process.  A great number of my peers, especially both those coming out of my obscure village and many of those I have encountered in my travels and travails, have not had any risings or falls and could be considered to be currently living mediocre lives – my apologies.

One common denominator between me and these my peers who have either risen and fallen or who have not risen at all I know now to have to do with our dreams and aspirations and lack thereof.  While some of those who have risen and fallen have had mundane dreams and those who have not risen at all were people who could not see beyond their noses while we were growing up, the few of us who are on ascendency in the pack today were the dreamers among us.  What I have also seen is that the loftier the dreams we had then, the higher and more stable those who had them have been in the barometer of their life.

Some of the lives of those who had no vision beyond their noses have today are lives of poverty to me.  In fact, a good number have died before they were fifty years of age.  Many of such deaths have been either in shame or in obscurity.

I have not become a millionaire yet in spite of dreaming of being a billionaire.  I feel alive and in great spirits, hoping and working towards achieving more of my dreams before I die.  I do not feel poor at all.  In fact, I feel that my life has meaning and that alone feels like am a rich billionaire.

My dreams led me to make certain decisions about how my life would be better.  Decisions determines destiny.  Decisions guided by dreams, aspirations and good attitude are bound to land you among the stars at least. 

Even when a man or woman of dreams dies without becoming a billionaire, he or she leaves a great footprint on the sand of time that would never be forgotten or erased because such sand of time are on the mind and heart of living men and women.

So it is true what Rev. Dr. Myles Munroe said, “The poorest person in the world is the person without a dream”

If you would like to learn how to dream and have your dreams come true in your life time, contact me for coaching at [email protected], www.francisnmeribe.com, +2348178008112, +2348035353201.

1Rev. Dr. Myles Munroe is a motivational speaker and pastor of a great church.

2The first President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (1805-1849)