by Roy Simmons

So often the first time anything new and creative is proposed, it gets labeled stupid!

Can’t you just hear it? “Let me get this straight, Orville. You and Wilbur are building a machine that will do what? Heavier-than-air flying machines! That is the stupidest hoax anybody ever palmed off on two gullible boys like you Wrights. Get a real job!”

Or maybe it was somebody’s scatter-brained idea of talking pictures, black and white children attending the same school, or someone walking

on the moon. More than one person was berated simply for giving voice to such “silly” ideas.

It turns out that some of the people who dared to propose such outlandish possibilities are now regarded as geniuses. Revolutionaries. Heroes. And it was only because they dared to question the status quo. They dreamed of what might be and challenged the limitations others had accepted without questioning.

Do you have a dream too? Like restoring a car or house, it will take twice as long as you thought, cost far more than you anticipated, and may strain every important relationship in your life! Only you can decide if it will be worth it to undertake something so ambitious and costly.

There will be false starts. There will be embarrassing mistakes along the way. But the potential outcome could be as important to your personal situation as the achievements of the Wright brothers, Rosa Parks, and Neil Armstrong were to their time and place.

People said Jesus was demon-possessed and crazy. They called him a blasphemer and an insurrectionist. All because he dared to question conventional wisdom and practices. If you are fortunate enough to have

a dream in your heart, be willing to make mistakes in pursuit of it. Dare to be called stupid. You just might help change the world!

— Roy Simmons,