DREAMS, GOALS, AND LIFE

“Was it a dream?” I ask myself this question every morning when I wake up. I would have just woken up from a wonderful dream. But, when my father comes and turns on the lights and sprinkles some water on me, I wake up with a start, and am filled with disgust, with a realization that all that happened was just a dream. Oh, how I dread it when I have to wake up!

This is a routine. It happens each day. I would say that it has been happening every single day since the day that I first decided what I wanted to study in the future. From that day I have been seriously thinking how it is possible for just a decision or a passing thought to actually turn into a colorful dream and trouble you every day and night with its beautiful wings.

I am someone who never gives a thought about the future, leave alone the far away future, I don’t even think of the near future. And when there was pressure from the family front, I had to give it a serious thought. And that is when a fancy idea passed my head and when I thought it out aloud, people at home said, “Yeah, not bad, try it. For all you know it may be good for you.” And then it all began!

One simple thought transformed into some serious searching and hunting and I landed up with the perfect college, but it was far off. And my family was perfectly fine with the idea of studying something good and worth the pay, even if the college was far-off from home.

Thus began my dream- my dream of becoming a student of a top college, staying in a hostel, having fun with roommates, mess food, and much more.

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Life is filled up with such dreams. Be it tiny or a large one, dreams do make you lose your sleep. It is amazing how everything in life is connected to dreams, and every dream is connected to some goal and goals are the essential part of living. Without goals there would be no meaning to life. So the whole chain of dreams, goals and life goes about in a circle.

It is also important to understand as to how these dreams get formed. They don’t just randomly crop up in your head in the night during sleep; they do have their own sources, just like how my dream began with the talk of higher studies. Dreams can originate from various things, right from a minute activity that takes place in front of you, to an inspirational speech, to which one pays attention even for fifteen minutes!

Just a comment passed, a thought that shows itself up to you for a fraction of second, a motivational statement said in class by a teacher, a random sentence written in a book that you just flip through, an advertisement that’s got a catchy tag-line; and the list can go on as to what can feature in the list of the ways in which a dream is formed. Why go to that extent? A simple comparison done between you and a person of the same age group, who is doing something that is applauded, will stir feelings into one and then it can all start- dreaming of yourself in that position, getting praised for it, proudly spoken of to others, and it goes on and on and on.

But wait! How many of these dreams are worth the time you spend on dreaming? Not all of them are ones that are goal-oriented! We do dream of things that are completely useless. But, that’s for the person dreaming to decide. To decide what they dream of is useful or not, is their choice. What they think of as useful may be utter nonsense to others, but it is you who is the owner of your dream, so only you have the right to classify it.

If your dream is one that has some worth, and not just one that played a smile on your face when you woke up in the morning, then what is the purpose of that dream? How can one turn that dream into reality? Simple, make it a goal! A goal is after all a dream that is taken more seriously and is set by some boundaries. But, how is a goal achieved? Oh, that involves a lot of work! Once you set goals be sure that you need to sweat it out to achieve it. You need to set rules, plan procedures, include ideas, manage time, and the hard part is yet to come- you need to follow all the mentioned activities sincerely. 

Oh, and that sure does need a lot of hard work! Because it is only when you try being serious about something the whole world comes up in unison to push you off it. Not that many stand by and discourage you but they sure do play spoil sport! Just when you have got the right mindset and going to sit for your first step towards your goal, your friend calls for a movie that is on the hit-list and has been your must-watch list, and hello the ticket is available! And that’s how the struggle to achieve it becomes even more difficult. Because once you stray off the path, to come back to it is tough and one thing that is most important for you to come back is “will power”. Not just will power, you need a ‘strong’ will power so that you don’t stray back or go aloof. For one to actually achieve a goal or at least cross the initial few steps, one needs to think of oneself as a horse let to graze with blinders on. But that doesn’t mean you have to completely blind yourself from the outside world, the fun and frolic that’s happening around you, but all you need to do is set priorities. If there’s all work and no play, it’s just a waste of your day. And more than the serious part or theoretical part, the practical part makes a person stronger, sharper, and brighter. You learn more in the outside than in the inside. And that’s when you learn from your own mistake or from someone else’s mistake and all these play a very important role in you achieving your goal.

                     And finally, life! These dreams that are transformed into goals are the ones that keep life going! Small or large, dreams are the pedals for goals and in turn goals are the wheels of life! So in short life is IMPOSSIBLE without dreams- just like how I dreamt of becoming a writer for a newspaper when I was young and now that has turned into a goal and this is a part of my hard work to achieve my goal. Not just hard work, its HARD WORK!

SUBMITTED BY:        Varsha Varadharajan

5^TH SEMESTER, B.A.