This is to remind you that you are very special person sent to the planet Earth on a profoundly important mission — to Live Your Dream. Your life is the most fundamental and most important thing to you in this world. In this incessant cycle of earning money and paying bills; don’t forget the actual purpose of your life.
Hope this article helps you discover your dreams buried deep inside your heart.
Ask a young kid what he would like to become when he grows up. He would smugly tell you that he wants to become a doctor or an engineer or an actor or a cricketer. That kid would not stop there, he would assert specifically how successful he would like to become in the profession he wishes to work when he’s big. He would also explain in what terms he would like to be successful, ex: to become famous or to become rich etc. The kids are blessed with a fresh and fearless mindset which is not influenced by ignorant people and losers.When we were as young as that child, we used to plainly speak what we think in our heart. We dream, we yearn, we enjoy every small feeling. We desire to become the best in a field, better than all our friends, better than any person has ever been on this earth. When we tell our dream aspirations at such a young age, our relatives and elders enjoy listening to this pitch (I call it “the dream job pitch”). They love listening to the dream job pitch of children so much that they often reward them with chocolates/sweets, occasionally asking them to repeat their job pitch. And then they talk exaggeratedly about the child’s dream, joke in an encouraging manner with their friends about the kid’s dream profession, give silly ideas to the kid, do funny comparisons with current super stars in that field.
Elders are more impressed if the kid says that he would pursue a non-conventional profession such as an astronaut, a rocket scientist, a business magnate, a singer. The Mother encourages her child enthusiastically to tell his dreams to each person that pays a visit to her house. This is a kind of a psychological game to the elders; almost every parent plays this game. Mind you, this is not a serious thing at all. This is just a game played by adults. They vicariously enjoy the feeling of achieving something that the creative child dreams about. They enjoy it because, they haven’t reached such a state in their life – a state of chasing their craziest dreams of life.
Every child has some dreams. Few children have extra ordinary dreams, few have ordinary. Irrespective of how big they dream, there is something in common amongst all of them. They all “dream”.
The same child when he gets into the school, faces rejection in form of marks and percentages, setback in assignments, disappointment in tests, comparison with peers by elders, rebukes by teachers, peer pressure and other social conditioning. When a child misbehaves or does mischief, some elders go to the extent of asserting confidently that the kid would never come up in life and that he is good for nothing. Chances are that the kid would be punished for thinking out of the box.
Later in college, this young student faces discouragement in the form of denial of admission or scholarship, rejection in job interviews, comparison with other friends who are studying in better colleges or doing better jobs. This ambitious child when he become an adolescent, almost gives up his dreams, dismissing and disposing his dreams away, tagging them as “impractical”, “over-ambitious”, “impossible”, “infeasible”,”a wild goose chase”. If he doesn’t, his parents surely will. If the student now narrates the same vivid dream goals that he used to get rewarded for telling when he was young, will his parents react in the same way they did earlier? No. Parents will do all they can do to discourage this adolescent from pursuing anything off-beat such as a non-conventional course etc., hinting their child that they are strongly against their child’s dream future. The parents want their child just to do what the children of their colleagues are doing, nothing beyond their scope of understanding. The parents are completely changed now, they are over protective about their child now. They freak out just at the oral mention of pursuing a non-conventional career by their child. They will now do everything in their capacity, using all their experience in dealing with people, and using all the other influential elders or family friends – not to help the teenager to live his dreams, but – to sidetrack him and force him into the same career path that the mob has chosen.
As the teenager begins to attend his under graduate college, this trend of discouragement and assault of ambitiousness continues. This leads to confusion and under confidence in the student and worsens when he nears graduation. Though inadvertent, he gets influenced by the seniors who find a job that pays them a five figure salary. The parents begin ruthlessly comparing with the children of their friends, how well they are doing now in their lives, how nicely they are getting paid, how good is the institute they are currently studying, how cool the foreign country they are studying or working in is etc.
After all this conditioning, at a particular time, there are only few adolescents remaining who still wish to pursue their dreams. Those who didn’t yield to their family conditioning and advices, who did not get disturbed by their classmates’ and seniors’ financial successes, who cared less about “what others would think”. But now, how would this poor guy proceed. He has no experience, nor has he any money to survive if he chooses to go against his parents and live on his own, nor does he have any guarantee to success, and more importantly has no support to buy necessary tools that take him nearer towards his goals. He now has fear of rejection, that he may fail. Rejection in itself is not that difficult to handle, what’s more difficult handling the harsh criticism that comes as a response to a smallest failure.
In the end, even these handful of ambitious people give up by the time they pass out of the college, in the hope that they would live their dreams in later future, when they earn and accumulate a “lot” of money (“lot” is a very relative term, lot = infinite), when they are not dependent on anyone for their living. They conveniently postpone their plans to “near” future. These are the same people who get their bikes or cars painted with stickers that bear confident statements such as “No compromise” or “I am one of a kind”. They give up and join a career that is more readily available and that pays well.
The hungry student, deprived of encouragement, who was dependent on his parents for every petty expense, after joining a company, tastes the sweetness of money. The good feeling of being financially independent, buying every sweet and drink that he wanted to consume without any second thought, going to movies in the multiplex, buying costly digital gadgets without having to take approval of parents. Now comes the most dangerous thing — Bills. Mobile bill, Internet bill, Credit card bill, Living expenses, Gym bill, Expenses for intoxicated luxuries and other addictions.
The fresh graduates who join companies, commonly referred to as freshers, join the company with the dream of becoming the highest paid in the company, to learn the most technical stuff from a company, to beat the best employee of the company, to become CEO of the company. Freshers are the most enthusiastic, hardest working employees in any company. Ask a manager, how useful fresh graduates can be to infuse new energy into the team. They are flexible with relocation to any corner of the country, they are flexible with their timings of work, they are flexible with the nature of the work assigned, ready to show up at work on weekends and holidays etc. They are one of the reasons how the IT companies are able to post so much of profit every quarter despite of recession, spending less on just passed out graduates who work harder than more the experienced professionals whose ambition is invariably salary hike. What does a fresher dream? He would dream to go to on-site on a foreign trip, earn money, to pose in front of the Eiffel tower and post it on Orkut.
Work hard at the not so enjoyable job -> Earn money, happily look at the salary slip at the end of the month -> Save money in bank savings account-> Pay all the bills before the last date of payment -> Work -> Earn -> Save -> Bills -> Work -> Earn -> Save -> Bills…. goes on recursively…
A strange feeling starts to creep into these fresh professionals, “How would I pay my bills if I quit my job and pursue what I want? Let me take tiny steps towards my dream goals by working in weekends. Of course, I can’t lose the salary that I’m getting now. Who knows, I may not get a job in future at all.” This feeling keeps the freshers from taking any steps such as quitting the job to work full time for their goals. They begin to compromise with their dreams. This is not entirely their fault, it is the negative social conditioning and discouragement from the world that they got since their childhood.
They will under aim, become under-ambitious now. Ask them what do they want from life, they would reply that they want to hold an MBA degree, get a promotion, go on a company sponsored trip to a foreign country, get a hike in salary, work for a famous company, buy a car, buy a house. In what way do these personal goals seem like dream goals to you? Paying fees, going to a college, taking exams and earning a degree. Is it an impossible task? Have you not done this anytime before? Going to some place in the world where it snows, where you can earn money. Agreed you can earn quick money, but tell me something, is this place located in an alien planet? Is it a heaven, are there no problems there? Is life completely tension free in any place in this world, developed, developing or under developed? Talk about promotion, it is bound to happen. The harder you work, quicker you get the promotion. Do you seriously dream to see yourself in a senior position?
The perspective of young professional has changed over the time. He has started to promote his personal goals in life as his dream, such a big compromise he made without even realizing it.
Ask a BPO employee what would be his dream, he would reply that he dreams to work for an IT company which pays a better salary. Ask a handsomely paid IT engineer what would his dream goals be like, five years from now, he would answer that he would like to travel various foreign countries such as UK, USA, etc., and would like to accumulate a lot of money. Ask ten of the most paid IT professionals, what would they like to do after ten years or so, 6 out of 10 would instinctively answer that they would like to start an IT outsourcing business.
Those 6 who dreamed to run their own business, most probably young and unmarried having a couple of years of experience in the industry, would get married at the age of 28-32. After the wedding, it is a whole different ball game. They will have to shoulder responsibilities, they are no longer independent bachelors who are free to do whatever they want. There are dependents on him now – his wife and children. Let’s not get into the discussion of working wives now. Their goals and looking at things now changes, their new priorities are to own a house, accumulate money for education and security of their families. By default, they are responsible for taking care of their parents when they are aged. This is a natural trait in a cultivated & mature man and is a good thing in itself – keeping family forefront and giving priority to their goals.
Adding to this complication of the never-ending monthly bills, there is now debt or loan for buying a car or a house. These things now become favorite excuses of people for rationalizing their inaction to follow their dreams. Few more psychological terms that serve as good excuses are “family responsibilities”, “personal commitments”, “financial constraints” etc. The experienced employee learns to use these terms adroitly now.
The easiest way to murder your dreams is to flood yourself with problems, challenges and bills in life. Job change comes very handy to forget your dreams. In my opinion, one of the reasons why people make job changes is to break their boredom in their present job and present company. Partly because they don’t have the boldness to quit their job and pursue their dream job. They feel better by changing their work environment, and try to satisfy themselves with the salary hike and change in environment.
Is there no way that we can follow our dreams?
There is a time tested saying that you could put to practice and achieve your dream goals.
“When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.” ~ Paul Coelho
“Don’t be stingy in dreaming.” After all it is a dream, it ought to be big, why not dream big, as big as the hugest things in the nature. Dream the height of Himalayas, the height of Niagara falls, the length of the China wall, the size of Microsoft’s desktop market, volume of Google search results.
Photo Courtesy: Ilker
What is a dream like?
Bill Gates dreamed to see a computer in every household, in an age when the computer was a machine that research scientists and geeks used for complex calculations.
Google founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin dreamed to store the entire world wide web in their servers.
Wright brothers dreamed to fly like the birds.
Dream big. Live life.
So, what is your dream? Comment.
About the Author: Sridhar Jammalamadaka is the Editor of Interview Mantra. He's a typically non-typical Software Engineer from Pune, India. He likes entrepreneurship, web technologies and Micro Controller programming. He enjoys playing cricket and piano (but rarely does these activities). Through this website, he wishes to gather a large community of aspiring engineers, entrepreneurs and professionals from all parts of the globe. You can connect with him on Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/sridhar.j 
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