Dare to Dream…Dare to do

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
- Mark Twain



So asserted the famous novelist. I remembered when I was a kid, my favorite dream was to become a fighter pilot. I had all the names of aircrafts and their configurations down pat. My favorite pastime was drawing aircraft sketches on any paper I could find. Spoilt many a notebook with that hobby of mine. Flying like Superman had come much earlier and batting like Tendulkar much later, but as they say those were the stuff of dreams. I guess all of us were dreamers in our ‘wonder years’. Wide eyed dreams, the reality of life hadn’t touched us yet.

I guess as the years slipped by, so did many of our dreams. Yesterday, I sat back and tried to recollect some of my childhood dreams. You can very well imagine the wistful look on my face as I remembered some of them. Our dreams maybe slipped away because we were made to grow up by life around us. Somebody probably told us - ‘Forget your stupid dreams…be responsible…you are not a child anymore…its time for you to get a job’. What’s more, I guess we believed those voices. Innocence went first, our dreams maybe followed soon after. We let our dreams die.
Hey, but the good thing about dreams is that we can switch it on again. We maybe had pulled the plug, but we can plug into our dreams again. I for one have started doing it again.
Here’s why-

1. Lying on my deathbed, I don’t want to say to myself with my last breath - ‘If I only had done that…!’ I want to die with as few regrets as possible.

2. Maybe the dream I dream today, will be the catalyst to make my life or somebody else’s life a bit better. Perhaps, I dream of rekindling a damaged relationship. Wouldn’t that dream and its achievement do something for my life?

3. Dreams have the power to ignite passion and energy. A viable dream can galvanize me into action. Kick starting me from my lethargic block.

4. Imagine pursuing and achieving a small dream. For me its as simple as a trip to The Himalayas…for you it could be the Swiss alps (I have dreamt that too!). Imagine the pleasure. Won’t that experience be a life fulfilling one. A small dream could give the momentum to larger fantasies. Therein lies their power.

5. I want to leave some memories for others. I want to fill the memories with the dreams I have and will achieve.

6. To disturb the status quo, to life a fulfilled life, only magnificent dreams will help me to achieve that. So here I am trying to reconnect with my dreams.

And I have ultimately realized, my class teacher was very wrong - Daydreaming is not at all bad as it is made out to be!