Once upon a time, there was a young girl named Dorothy Gale, who lived on a farm in Kansas with her aunt and uncle and a little dog named Toto. Her aunt and uncle were kind and hardworking, and while she didn't have many friends her own age, she got along well with the farmhands and even saw them as part of an extended family. It was a good and simple life, and while she couldn't really imagine living any other way, she wasn't quite happy. She felt that she was missing something, that maybe living on a farm was just not her destiny. There was another world out there somewhere ... she didn't know where, whether it was nearby or as far away as over the rainbow, but it was a better, brighter world ... a world where all of her dreams were just waiting to come true, if she could only get there. But she didn't know how to get there, and she had school and the harvest to worry about, so she didn't even try. But a day came when Dorothy received a spark of inspiration. To save her best friend, her little dog Toto, from the hands of a wicked neighbor, Dorothy packed a basket, grabbed Toto, and went in search of her fortune. The real world was a wider and scarier place than it had seemed from her comfortable life on the farm, but our friend Dorothy was determined to continue. That is, until she hit an obstacle. Does any of this sound familiar? Many of us may be leading perfectly comfortable lives but still feel we're missing something. We try not to think of it, immersing ourselves in our work or home life, but the thought of something more keeps tickling the back of our minds. Could that something be our ultimate destiny calling to us? Could it be a daydream begging for a chance to come true? How often do we sit down and ask ourselves if we're truly happy or even try to conceptualize specifically what we want out of life? In the Western world, most of us are comfortable or at least too busy to do anything about it if we're not. If we do live a life filled with problems or hardship, we've usually resolved ourselves to it, thinking that life is meant to be such a struggle. I think it's fair to say that no one has everything he or she wants out of life -- there is always more to experience. But the question is, How do we go about getting what we want? Most people pursue their dreams like Dorothy. They idly dream about the life they're missing. They may make an attempt to go after their dreams, but most of their attempts will be unplanned and unfocused. And ultimately, the moment they hit an obstacle or encounter a naysayer, many of them turn back toward their old lives, which may or may not be comfortable, but are definitely not fulfilling. Well, as Dorothy ran down the road of life, blindly trying to locate her dreams, she met up with a charlatan who tricked her into turning back and retreating to her old life as quickly as she could. I'm sure you remember the rest of this story. Part of her dream actually did come true, and she ended up in her magical world over the rainbow. But like many of us who idly daydream about what we want out of life, she discovered when she got it that it wasn't what she really wanted at all! Had she spent some time pondering what she really wanted, she might have realized that the land of her dreams was actually beyond the next rainbow over, but instead she went farther and farther down the wrong Yellow Brick Road, having one misadventure after another. Many people think that the message behind "The Wizard of Oz" is that happiness comes from being content with what you have, with not making waves or striving for something different, because these things will invariably come to nothing or be disastrous if you should somehow accomplish them. But this is a tragic misconception. The real message behind "The Wizard of Oz" comes not at the very end of the movie, when Dorothy is reunited with her family and friends and decides that "there's no place like home." The true message comes a couple of minutes before this, when the good witch laughs her silvery little laugh and tells Dorothy that it was well within her power to get what she wanted the entire time! And, of course, it's within the power of each and every one of us to make our heart's desires into reality. All we have to do is access our talents and abilities by believing in ourselves. Dorothy didn't get home because she clicked some magic shoes together; she got home because she believed she could.