A is for Achievement. What our minds can conceive and believe, they can achieve. Like owning your own company or having a career or a home in the country, everybody needs a dream.

B is for Become. We become what we think about. Just as our bodies are made up of the food we eat, our minds reflect the sum of its inputs. Thoughts are like seeds and anyone can grow radishes. But if we plant the right seeds and take care to nurture them, we can grow avocados [in our minds].

C is for Success. Success is the progressive realization of a worthy goal. Our minds are ingenious and tend to formulate plans to accomplish our goals. Doing this each day moves us toward success.

A True Story
A rancher in Africa heard of diamonds being discovered in other parts of the country and sold his ranch in a quest for wealth. After years of wandering he became disillusioned and took his life.

Meanwhile, the new ranch owner discovered a large black stone which he put in his living room. A visitor said it was a diamond. The former owner had sold acres of diamonds to look for them somewhere else.

Opportunities come to us often, but they aren't usually labelled "opportunity." Often they are disguised as problems. But if we meet them wisely, they move us toward the realization of our dream.

D is for Dream. The real question is, what is the most worthy goal that we can imagine?

Many people dream of winning the lottery or becoming a millionaire in business. Obsession with money and the things it will buy leads to an imbalance life and the neglect of things that money cannot buy. Many movie stars suffer from low self-esteem, and many wealthy people worry that they do not have enough money to be secure.

Unfortunately, many people do not understand the value of things that do not have a dollar sign attached. We tend to take them for granted. Our health, happiness and peace of mind, our freedoms, goals and dreams are without a dollar sign--they are priceless. They are what makes life worthwhile.

A worthwhile dream depends on our circumstances.  It may be a career that brings satisfaction in serving others. If married, it may include a better relationship with our spouse. If we have children, we will want to be all that we can be to them. One principle that is helpful in choosing goals is that our rewards in life are in proportion to our service to others.

Young women need domestic skills. The ability to prepare healthful meals in an appealing way is more important than playing violin or soccer.

If you know what the words mean and how to use them fluently, you can function in that field, whether it is law, medicine or computer science. The basic tool is the primary language. If we don't do well with it, we usually don't go so far.

Need for Reform in Education:  Having taught at the university level, I can see the system needs major reform. Most of  college and the first two years of medical school are focused on book-learning that has no practical value to most graduates. [I've forgotten 90+% of the zoology, chemistry, physics, calculus, history, literature, etc, so why learn it?]

Apprenticeship Revisited
I think any good high school graduate could apprentice under physicians for 3- 6 month-rotations and after two years of asking questions and studying about what they saw, could do a good job of helping others with their health problems, and still refer those who needed it.

After a year the apprentice could save his mentor time by seeing the patient first and stating what he thought the problem was, and how to treat it. If this concept could work for life and death issues, it should work for most trades or professions.

"Recently the book Education by Ellen G. White has been brought to my attention. Written at the turn of the century, this volume was more than fifty years* ahead of its time. I was surprised to learn that it was written by a woman with but three years of schooling. 

"The breadth and depth of its philosophy amazed me. Its concept of balanced education, harmonious development, and of thinking and acting on principle are advanced educational concepts.

"The objective of restoring in man the image of God, the teaching of parental responsibility, and the emphasis on self-control in the child are ideals the world desperately needs.

"Mrs. White did not necessarily use current terms. In fact, she did not use the word "curriculum" in her writing. But the book Education in certain parts treats all important curriculum principles. She was concerned with the whole learner—the harmonious development of mental, physical, and spiritual powers.

A Definition from the book, Education:  
"Our ideas of education take too narrow and too low a range. There is need of a broader scope, a higher aim. True education means more than the pursual of a certain course of study. It means more than preparation for the life that now is. It has to do with the whole person and with the whole period of existence possible to man. It is the harmonious development of the physical, mental and spiritual powers. It prepares the student for the joy of service in this life, and for the higher joy of wider service in the world to come....

"The world has had its great teachers, men of giant intellect and extensive research, men whose utterances have stimulated thought and opened to view vast fields of knowledge; and these men have been honored as guides and benefactors of their race; but there is One who stands higher than they. We can trace the line of the world's teachers as far back as human records extend; but the Light was before them....

"Every human being, created in the image of God, is endowed with a power akin to that of the Creator--individuality, power to think and to do. The men in whom this power is developed are the men who bear responsibilities, who are leaders in enterprise, and who influence character. It is the work of true education to develop this power, to train the youth to be thinkers and not mere reflectors of other men's thought....