Dreams, princesses and the Disney-industrial complex

"Like a dream come true"

Choose your dreams carefully.

Everyone is entitled to a dream. It gives us hope, focuses our energy, makes us human.

Sometimes, though, we get sold a dream instead of creating our own.

Is it really every girl's dream to become a princess, to be chosen by someone of royal birth and to have a $34 million wedding? Or is that the Disney-industrial complex betraying you, selling you short?

I just read that the folks who brought us the Mall of America are going to redo the troubled Xanadu shopping complex in New Jersey and rename it The American Dream. Is this the best we can do? Shop?

Dreams are too important to sell cheap, to give over to some organization trying to make a buck.

Catherine Casey chose a different dream--to move to Accra on her own to build an outpost of the Acumen Fund. It's a dream that scales, that pays dividends, and most of all, that she can make come true.

It's so easy to be sold on the combination of compliance, consumption and approval by the powers that be. Of course, you're entitled to any dream you like, but I hope you will choose a bigger one.