A Counselor's Advice

Saturday, April 24, 1999

I had an odd dream this morning; a dream that I feel was a bit of a message, or a wake-up call. It could be interpreted totally literally, but I really feel like it was supposed to be more than that.

In the dream, I was in a classroom, taking some sort of test, and I just breezed through it, like it was nothing. I believe I was in a community college, and maybe just taking one class at a time.

At the end of the test, I turned it in, and I was to wait while the instructor graded it. After he/she was done (I don't remember the instructor at all), I was asked to stay, because a counselor, or someone along those lines, wanted to have a talk with me.

The room emptied as other students turned in their tests and left, and soon it was just me and the instructor. When the counselor showed up, the instructor left. The counselor looked over my test for a few minutes, at the instructor's desk, and then came to talk to me.

He was a small man, and thin, perhaps in his early fifties, with salt-and-pepper hair, in untamed curls about his head, and his front teeth were set at a bit of an angle to each other. I think he was wearing glasses, but I can't be sure. "You're so talented," he said, coming to stand a foot or two away from me. "You came in and breezed through this test like it was nothing. You have so much ability, but you're letting it go to waste."

He paused for a moment, and I nodded, and then he went on. "We had the Academic Decathlon last week. We really could have used you." (I was in our high school's academic decathlon, my Junior year.) "Please don't let your talents go to waste."

While not exactly what he said, that's pretty much the gist of things. The dream went on, and changed, and at a few points it was really downright weird. (I was wearing colored contacts, and had slept in them, and at one point took one out of my eye... I knew the other was still in, and should be majorly irritating my eye, but I couldn't feel that it was in there. I also had my hair dyed bright pink!)

But through it all, I remembered what the counselor had to say: I was letting my talents go to waste. I think that was supposed to be a message to me... I know I have many abilities, but I don't do much with them... I feel like there is so much more that I could and should be doing, to contribute to the world. I'm just not sure where to start, or how to focus those abilities. Of course, my counselor didn't give me any hints in that direction....