Reality can’t fit in the dream

This is a question I was asked back in primary school. It was quite interesting because back then I was not so sure about what the answer was, and I think I just regurgitated what was most popular back then, I want to be an astronaut, was my answer. With time this dream kept evolving, the more informed I got, the more precise the dream started becoming.

It's quite fascinating to see the cycle we all go through, when we are young quite around the primary, our dreams are so vivid, and we are full of confidence. When we get to university, they become even more precise, and we know exactly what we want to do, which has become closer to what we can actually do. Eventually we get into the work force and what we can do becomes much more prominent than what we want to do. Eventually for a great deal of people reality catches up with the dream and overtakes it in the end, we finally decide to do what we can and not necessarily what we want.

Don’t get me wrong, there are still a lot of people who do end up doing what they had decided years ago to do, but at this point it's not that much of a dream anymore. It has turned into reality, and unfortunately it doesn’t have the same appeal to it like it did back then.

The image in our mind

The idea we have in our mind of what we want to be or what we want to achieve are sometimes far from being realistic. They sometimes reach the point of pure delusion, nevertheless they still remain possible but would require a great deal of effort. I think one of the main factor we often exclude when we think about what we want is our own strength, our own mortality, the limits we not only put on ourselves but also those we have innately. Realistically speaking, nothing is stopping you from becoming a billionaire, an astronaut, a doctor, or even a superstar. All those require a great deal of effort which is something we fail to factor in when making those assertions that's why the more time passes by, we come to a better understanding of ourselves and what we can do.

When reality hits

I think it would save us all a lot of time if from the unset we already set for ourselves realistic dreams which remain difficult to attain certainly but which do take into consideration our strength. Becoming an astronaut isn’t something impossible, but statistically speaking, you are as likely to become one as the probability of seeing a meteor pass over your house, it's not impossible, but it's highly unlikely. With a realistic goal we set for ourselves right from the unset, this will lead us to be much more prepared for the future and work incrementally to attain that goal.

An example of such a goal could be to become a good businessman, to own a company, or yet again to achieve certain accomplishments in our lifetime. The difficulty is always that these roles aren’t very appealing and we rather go with what sounds outstanding.

Conclusion

I think we should encourage children to aim for more realistic goals than anything else, we should strive to expose them to what is attainable and realistic for them. I understand the whole idea of shooting for the stars and landing on the moon, but still, this comes with some negative downsides which make people even miss that moon as well.

Thanks for reading ☺️