As my day job, I train help desk agents at a major tech company. For a morning ice breaker, and to help them get to know each other better, I have one student a day stand up and talk about what he or she is passionate about. In my last class, there were very few people who had a real passion. One of those students was Roderick.

Roderick told us about his budding music career as a hip hop artist. Although he was known somewhat in the local hip hop community, most of his work had been a collaboration. He was really excited to finally make his own album, which he planned to release next summer. I asked him to perform for us and he was shy to do so, but he did read some lyrics he’d recently written.

At 37, few people would seriously consider getting a full-time music career off the ground. At 37, few people would have as little amount of time as Roderick to make that dream a reality. A day or two after Roderick shared with us in class he died in a car accident. It was just a week after class started, a week after we all met him, but for me and several of the other classmates who had started to get to know him, it was like losing a friend. I thought of all his hopes and dreams, all his potential that was never fully realized. But then I realized that even though he never lived to see the finished product, I like to think he lived each day getting one step closer to his goal, and for that his labor was not in vain.

Dreams can be complicated. They can bring on heartache and pain. But they also can be beautiful. They can make the world a better place. Dreams give us a reason to hope, sometimes a reason to live. And we should live daily so we can die empty, as the amazing book by Todd Henry encourages us to do. Although they lead me to dark places sometimes, I never want to stop dreaming. And I never want to discourage anyone else from dreaming, either. I hope that when Roderick went home that night he felt encouraged and empowered. It takes such a small gesture to make a huge impact. Why should we hold that back?