Why don't we have the courage to confront our own dreams? Why? To answer this question, you have to start from the very beginning of your life. As a kid, you were curious to know things. So, what did you do? You asked. And an interesting thing about those answers; they were hardly correct. In fact, the answers were plain to satisfy that kid, so that the adults could do the real stuff. Remember the time when you said, I want to fly or I want to go to the moon, or some other fancy stuff you want to do. What response did you collect? You should do it when you grow up or Boy! This is far from your reach... Remember the time you saw the Spiderman movie, and all you could do was to throw the web at your friend, and even your friend pretended to dodge it. You actually wanted to be Spiderman or some other comic character. It was not limited to comic characters, a few days back when I asked my four years old nephew what he wanted to be, he said: "I want to fly a helicopter".
So, the real question is -
who are we? What do we really want to become?
Did we forget to dream dreams are engulfed upon by heaps of doubts created when we were kids?
When you look into the eyes of a kid you can see the enthusiasm within him. When I was a kid, whenever my mother used to call me from other room I used to run to her, and she used to say don’t run and come slowly else you’ll hurt yourself and when the same happens now, I lazily drag myself to her room. When I ask students of primary classes, why do you go to school? I get varied responses ranging from ’my mother forces me to go’ to ‘ my mother says that if you don’t study you will not become a pilot’. And when I ask the same question to my colleagues the answer becomes more and more stringent, "to earn more money while not hating my job". That’s a perfectly fine response considering that the world is not ideal. So during the time a child grows up he loses the desire to dream, he develops goals now. And these goals are too mainstream.
If against all forces, he somehow retains his ability to dream there’s another barrier in his path to achieve it.
The barrier of love. While taking every major decision, our loved ones have a reserved place. We decide while keeping in mind that our loved ones will be affected by it. It sometimes becomes a barrier for us. When G.H. Hardy offered Ramanujam a place at Trinity College, he declined not because he didn’t want to go, but because traditionally brahmins can’t take a voyage in the sea as it would cause pataiya (loss of caste). He didn't want to disregard his mother and their pride in the society so he decided not to go. Love was a barrier for him. He confronted this barrier and made his dream come true.
Normally a person tries to remain conscious of his immediate surroundings while doing any simple task. He overkills the thinking part. A constant voice in his head tells him that people around are judging him. But, at the end, you will realise that no one’s got the time to judge you that much. There will be a time when you’ll realise that love is the impetus and not something which keeps you from your dream. And, that is when you could cross the third barrier.
The third barrier in your pursuit of achieving your dream is ‘the fear of defeat’. We are afraid. We don’t give it a try because we think that if we are left defeated then our excuse "I wasn’t interested in it anyway" won’t work. But no one cares about your excuse other than you yourself. I don’t know if defeats are necessary or not but I’m sure they are not to be repented. Rocky Balboa taught me one thing, "It’s not about how hard you hit, It is about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward". When you will begin chasing your dream you are bound to fall down, you are inexperienced you will face difficulties but they are there to prepare us for the future. The more hard you get hit, the better you become.
We face many problems, they are normally of two types, one which comes instantaneously and gets resolved easily and the other one is some minor problem. We tend to neglect this and it sticks, then we become familiar with it and learn to live with it. And that’s the problem. It’s like a small hole in the pipe which gets bigger over time and then bursts the pipe. Living your dream is not at all easy, in fact, it is the road not taken. You will reach the same destination no matter whichever path you choose, but what matters is the journey. Once you reach the destination you are confident. You don’t fear hurdles anymore. This is when you perform miracles in your life!
If I finish it here I’ll be missing another very important obstacle. Paulo Coelho also discussed in many of his books. It’s the blunder of not realising your dream when
you are almost there. Looking at the sun when you know that others are still sleeping is awesome. I know many people who lose control and get diverted from their path... The feeling to be near your dream is very wonderful and joyous. It is so beautiful that you commit blunders happily. We fail in the final assessment, and this too is a hit which we have to endure. We kill the person whom we love the most. Chasing the dream is fine, but having a dream is also important. If you look up any famous person and read about him, you will know, they weren’t anyone until they had a dream. Painlessly chasing your dream is not important, you should realise your dream.
"Where your Heart is, there will be your treasure" Paulo Coelho