Response to @joshgroban "Granted"

Josh was an extraordinary child. He saw musical theater when he was small and decided he wanted to do musical theater. 

That in and of itself is not unusual. What is unusual is that his determination to achieve that goal never wavered. 

He got into arts schools, arts camps, lessons, an arts college. Even after he booked a multimillion dollar music contact, he never let go of that dream, for thirty years, until he actually managed to get on a Broadway stage. 

Who has that kind of determination and focus? Certainly not me. I never even had any idea what I wanted to be, career wise, when I grew up until I was 57, when I decided I wanted to act. And now my determination to do that is wavering some. Before that, I was doing intellectual property law, mostly to please my dad. 

He also has some extraordinary gifts. He reports that he could come home and play at least the melody of all the songs from a musical on the piano after seeing the musical once. When Kat was dating him, she reported that he still does this, that he can play any song that he's heard. 

So he writes this song, "Granted," which promotes pursuing a dream. Josh had a dream. He pursued it. He got it. 

What about the rest of us? We don't have that kind of determination and focus. We don't have those natural gifts. We might not even have a dream, or not a realistic one. I have fantasized about marrying a number of celebrities. Is that going to happen? Probably not. And look what happened with Katie Holmes. She had a dream to marry Tom Cruise, as I also once did. She achieved her dream, but it apparently didn't turn out the way she hoped. That's often the case for me. Things aren't what I hoped they would be. 

So Josh got his dream and apparently loved it as much as he dreamed he would. That's also not so typical of dreams. 

I dreamed of a lifelong successful career. That failed. I dreamed of a happy marriage. My ex dumped me. I dreamed of brilliant children. I got disabled ones. I worked hard to stay fit and lose weight, in the hopes of having a healthy active lifestyle as an older person. Then I got cancer. 

Dreams. 

Sigh.