Is it too Much to Ask that We Achieve Our Dreams

Steven Petrov
The Paw Print

All of us have once had that one thing that used to be our dream job, career, or experience when we were younger. However, the sad reality is that more than 70% of the people out there never fulfill their dreams and end up at 40 years old with kids, in a place and business occupation that they have never had a desire to be in.
The reason why I mentioned “with kids” is that once someone becomes a parent, seeing his children everyday brings back memories of his/her own childhood more regularly and most often people realize that their children now have a dream of becoming a singer, athlete, actor, astronaut etc. just like once they had themselves. People must learn that our lives are the end product of the decisions we make on a daily basis, and if one is not pleased with his present occupation, health, weight, business skills, athletic performance, etc.
one has the choice of making a decision to change his approach to life and give his best every day in everything he/she does or to keep complaining about all the unfairness of life towards him/her.
When a baby is born, it is free of any external influence (parents, friends, teachers, relatives, etc.) and subsequently the dreams that each young child has are predominantly formed by his innate desires, rather than the “realistic” advice, lessons, and ways of others around him. The particular desire that a child aspires is a window into his passions and talents and it is the key of fulfillment and enjoyment later in his life.
The reason why the majority of people are not where they once dreamt of being is because somewhere along the line they decided to listen and believe the opinion of everyone else around them on what is “realistic” and what is not, and subsequently decided to give up on their “unrealistic” desires. The reason for the quotes around the words “realistic” and “unrealistic” is very simple.
These two words are the most mistakenly used and wrongfully interpreted words in the world. What I really believe in is that both of them should be removed from English due to the misery and struggle they cause to people.
The negative contributions of these two words are huge, and are mostly represented in the persuasion of either one’s self or of someone else that his innate desires and dreams are “unrealistic” and “impossible” of achieving, which leads to a chain of subsequent events.
Even if a person still succeeds in another area of life, he/she always feels that something is missing and always has that internal question, “What if…” The world has reached its current stage of development just because there were people throughout the history that refused to give up on their desires and dreams and refused to buy into that concept of being “realistic.” Many years ago things like cars, computers, airplanes, space crafts, telephones, electricity, etc. were considered “unrealistic” and “impossible” to create or accomplish, but what if the Wright brothers, Tomas Edison, Henry Ford, and all other great people who gave our world today its form and shape, had once said “Well, there is no point of trying that, because it is simply unrealistic?”
The history is there to teach, prepare and make us better for the future, so we should better learn how to use it in order to keep prospering as individuals and as a society.