How often have you thought about the growing need to live the dream you so badly wanted? But, as we grew older, we came to the daunting truth that the perfect dream doesn’t even exist, and the dreams we once believed were the reasons we lived this life, have not always been ours to begin with. These dreams stem from a place shaped by the people around us, who taught us what to aspire to. They call it appropriate, I call it utter madness.
The start of this article may have been a big rant on my part, but I believe it was important for me to make you feel what I have been feeling for the longest time on this planet.
What are dreams? Referencing most of the literature that I have gobbled, it is something which keeps you awake; it is that reality of life which everyone should know about themselves. But, if you ask this immature writer of yours, for me dreams feel like the biggest dilemma of life. It is something which everyone keeps telling me to have and make my career out of.
For a significant amount of time, most of us had dreams of becoming a pilot or an astronaut, until we shifted towards being a doctor or an engineer. Finally, when we were in 11th grade everyone told us to choose a subject that would fulfil our dreams. Oh, that god-awful 11th grade! If you scored more than 85% in your 10th you had to choose science, as not doing so was the most significant loss of your life– bigger than losing your favourite teddy bear you’ve had since you were a kid (I know this may sound weird to some, but I personally loved my teddy bears.)
This is also the first time that our dear society is properly introduced to us. Now I, like each one of you, at that time thought I would be different and rebellious and that I would be a new sensation everyone would talk about and consequently get inspired from. But I, like everyone else, was fooled by the games of this society. I, too, was fooled to think of an appropriate future which would be accepted by everyone around me.
But, how many of us have chosen the right thing at that time? Maybe it had been right in the eyes of society, but how often did it feel right for us? The dreams which were approved by society ultimately didn’t get our approval. And, in the end, we all got stuck in the loop of life, where what we were living just didn’t feel like ours.
The first time I heard someone say that they regretted their choices, I was mad at them. How could someone simply accept that they were wrong with the decisions that they consciously made? The irony of the situation was that it was someone close to me, someone who I had made my ideal for the longest time.
Now, what does one do when their ideal says that they were wrong? In my case, you have a big existential crisis! But, that was also the time I was forced to ask myself whether the dream I had thought was mine, was even mine to begin with, and the answer was haunting and terrifying. It made me think about how many of us feel that way when we come to the realisation that somehow, we are the ‘defective pieces’ in this world who can’t understand what our dreams are. The feeling of utter helplessness was too daunting to ignore.
However, now that I think about it, that situation made me think about what my dreams are. Now, please don’t get excited thinking that like every Bollywood movie I too came to realise what my dream was. What I did realise, however, was that some of us are taking our time, and some of us still don’t know what we want to become, or what our calling is. We can learn to be okay with this. Dreams don’t always have to be something to make a career out of, and it doesn’t have to be your whole purpose in life either. It can be simple and unique, which should satisfy you in all the ways you find right.
At last, though, I realised that my dream wasn’t to become a big inspiration for everyone. It was to be someone I could look in the mirror and feel comfortable with. It was to be able to love people as furiously as I would like to, and not feel ashamed about it. It was to be there for my siblings and best friends and to spend a lifetime making memories which I could take with me till the end of my time. This is truly my dream… maybe it’s unconventional, but I love it. May everyone out there understand what their dream is eventually, no matter how big or small it is, and have the courage to accept and embrace it.
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