DREAMS ARE MEANT TO BE FOLLOWED :

You were born free and careless. You knew nothing to be afraid off. The world was unknown to you. You didn’t plan what to do and when? All you did was to eat, sleep, laugh and cry, to live one day at a time. You played in mud, drenched in rain, ran till your heart was about to explode. You dreamed all day long, learned by hit and trial and explored endless possibilities to get what you dreamed of.

Along the process of dreaming and enjoying every moment of your life you suddenly got the responses,” don’t do that; don’t go there, you can’t do that, what will people say?” The source of this: not some stranger but your own parents, grandparents, teachers, elder siblings and who not?

Of course they meant good for you, they cared for you, they wanted to protect you from any danger existed out there. However other than being cautious you learned the NO, DON’T, IMPOSSIBLE and the family of such other nay words. Now your world has the limitations you never thought of earlier. Your dreams got divided into real life possibilities or fantasies, capable of earning a livelihood or struggling to make ends meet, making you socially acceptable or shunned. You chose a life that was not yours but it made you acceptable. You gave reasoning to yourself that it was the right thing to do; you can pay bills, have the security of basics, save for the old days and retire peacefully.

Deep down you wanted to be someone else, a guitarist, a singer, a dancer, world traveler,a chef, an actor but you made yourself understand and moved ahead, everyone around you was happy or seemed to be. You were punching in sign in and sign out, listening to a boss who looked as frustrated as you were if not more, pushing yourself into the mental agony of repeating the meaningless work day in day out till you switched to another job which was same as last one just with better pay. But the agony continued….

Many times you thought what if you have kept your mind open to the possibilities; you had listened to your heart and followed your dreams, believed in yourself that no matter what, you could make it. Life would have been different now. Wouldn’t it?

But what it I tell you no matter where you are, what age you are and what you presently do; you can still follow your dreams. Stop telling yourself you are too late, too weak, too old or too stupid to be what you always wanted to be. Ignore the ‘should not’ and live the ‘can do’ attitude. Ray Croc, Mary Kay Ash, Ang Lee, J.K. Rowling, Steve Jobs, Premlata Agarwal, there are numerous examples of people who followed their heart and lived with peace of mind and pleasure of body, though many of these started late in their lives yet they achieved the life they wanted.

Enroll in that course you have been thinking about, take those guitar lessons, learn something new, start working on your hobby on weekends, surf it up online, take a mini vacation, take a risk and start a venture, jot down your goals, think what makes you happy and pursue that, ask someone who is already doing what you want to do to guide you. The great thing about today’s world is whatever you want to do is already been done by someone else, so why not learn from them and follow that.

It’s not easy. Yes it’s not. Nothing worth having in this world comes easy.You may have to get up an hour early everyday, you may have to give up your TV time or gossip time. You still have the choice whether to get up every morning feeling sick of what you are doing or work gradually to change it. Of course it is not going to happen overnight. Where you stand today in life didn’t happen in a jiffy. You gave it all your early years and then couple of years of experience as well.

Remember everyone is unique and born for a purpose. You need to find that purpose. It’s okay if initially you are not able to identify it. All you need to do is keep following your passion and keep looking. Don’t compare yourself with others; you never know what their story is all about.

The only regret one has on a deathbed ‘not been able to do things that one knew one could have done’. Your days here are numbered. If you are at 30 today and assume an average of 70 years life expectancy you have got 40 years left. That’s close to 2080 weekends only. Steve Jobs said it in best possible way, ““Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

Identify, Believe, Persist.

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