Who kills your dreams?

Dream is a beautiful word and has many meanings, carries different interpretations for different individuals.

The dictionary describes dream as, "a series of thoughts, images, and sensations occurring in a person's mind during sleep."

There are dreams that you see in your sleep and there are some that keep you going after them till you actually achieve them, forgetting whether you slept or not. 

If your life is without any turbulence, everyone loves you, all your ideas are accepted with no oppositions- it simply means that your dreams aren't big enough! Everyone of us is capable of dreaming, its a fantasy world, We can be all that we want to be. But a majority of us are dreamers only in our sleep. 

If you ask older people or people of my generation to list some of their dreams. Its very difficult for them to even come out with just10. The other day I was talking to my husband, what his dream was, He couldn't come out with any. I know that he has been a go getter, an achiever in his own right and I am proud of him. But he, in his early 40s, having more than 20 glories years in his career; couldn't think of a dream. I am a person who'll always talk about positivity, optimism and dreams. Wanted him to think about his dreams, dreams that he cherished and the ones that were hidden somewhere. I felt the need to wipe the dust that was gathering over his dreams and hiding them from his vision as well as his mind. He represents a lot of us out there who have forgotten what dreams they once saw. I feel that we all need to have that drive to keep us going otherwise life certainly has no meaning. Again, these are my thoughts...

At the same time it made me wonder, why does this happen to people?Where do our dreams go? What distinguishes us from other animals is that we dream, We believe in them and we can achieve them. I also happened to ask my young sons the same question and they both came out with many dreams. Infact the elder one wrote down a big list of his dreams right from what he wanted to become when he grows up to the kind of house, car, toys, electronics, bikes and loads of other things that he wanted. The younger one who is only 5 and can't manage writing that well, told me more things than his brother. You know how kids are! to seek my appreciation he ensured that he came out with things that sounded jazzy! 

It made my thoughts stronger  that there had to be something that killed our dreams. When we grow up the focus moves from dreams to the harsh realities of our lives and that we somewhere forget to dream. As children our dreams are so many that we need to stretch both our arms to try holding and expressing them. As we grow up, finish studies, enter into the professional lives. We then try to fit the dreams into our earnings. They still look so big . We then try to make them smaller and smaller till they fit into the pay checks that we receive.These we take as our realities, the bitter truths and live by them. 

In this process we tend to lose our dreams, some may even kill them. The people around us become experts in telling us what works and what doesn't. Society starts forming rules for the living safely, following somebody and doing what someone wants us to do. 

Society and the people somehow become like the stadium where a cricket match is on and passing their expert comments and directing players to play the shots. Does this work? Does the advice work? will the players listen to these so called experts sitting up in the stands? Definitely not! 

Then why do we listen to others when it comes to our own dreams. We create them in our imagination and in our minds. Our thinking makes a strong imapct on our subconscience mind. We visualise how to take them forward, what measures on our part will take them closer to realisation. We know the journey that we have walked and the steps that'll take us closer to our dreams. 

Our dreams are ours and only ours! we must certainly not risk them at the mercy of others. 
I love this saying," If you can dream it you can do it". If you were not capable of doing it you won't even imagine it in your wildest dreams. And if you have have dreamt it then allow your dream to take off.

Back to the questions who kills your dreams? It can be YOU, the experts in the society, your own circle of friends who haven't attempted what you are thinking of and the general experts who have no experience whatsoever. If dreamers and achievers listened to the losers in life, the earth would have still been plat, the sun would have been the centre of the universe and there would've have been no inventions and discoveries.

We all know that we have this one life, this one opportunity to live to the fullest, Do what we want to do, be constructive, be an achiever, live a worthy life and be proud of what and who we are.

Picture courtesy: Himanshu Tomar and Bharadwaj Dayala