This one might hit a little sore spot. Or so it might seem. We all dream. Growing up, getting in the labor market, creating a career, family, traveling to places, climbing Mount Everest, you name it. We all have dreams.
From the youngest age till the day we die perhaps. Dreams add spice to our lives and even hold it together, but at some point, if we don’t back them up with substance, they may become a bit unrealistic. And can slide further and further away from our control and a real chance for fulfillment.
Someone once said this on the subject:
“If you don’t build your dream, someone will hire you to build theirs”
As much as that might hit the aforementioned sore spot, it is true. If we don’t become the leader of our own dream, we become a builder of someone else’s. Not to say that that is a bad thing, though. We may be helping to build something great that not only provides us, many of us, a decent living but also lets us be part of the creation of something remarkable. And perhaps gives us the means to meanwhile pursue our own dreams - or at some later point.
But it is also the mathematics of life that energy fades, and has to be kept at a desired level by constant effort. Passion, determination, discipline, persistence, love and, quite simply, curiosity are among the great means to achieve that, at any age. Sometimes luck in the form of a chance occurrence or acquaintance can be a factor. But we may start fulfilling our own dream at any age.
Nevertheless, the optimal time to pursue one’s dreams from the point of time and energy is when you are a young adult. That pulsating energy and enthusiasm yet not divided by so many other things that can take charge of one’s life. And it does take a certain amount of selfishness to pursue one’s dreams, especially if it is time off from someone else(’s).
No wonder so many of the achievers (inventors, industrialists, politicians etc) in the history were men who didn’t have to spend their time and energy taking care of the immediate concerns of their households as that was the domain of the wifes - and women’s education and chances to build a career of their own was at such a low level. It took an exceptional woman to make it in those patriarchal times. And still does in many parts of the world.
Then of course, one of our dreams may be to just have a family. A dream that may prove to be the best there is, and the “just” there become, in all humility, the source of something truly great as new seeds are sown. Something that women especially have always known, the investors in future. So whether an inventor or investor, ours is to define what the dream is.
But, whose is the above quotation?
The answer is:
Nita Ambani. The chairperson and founder of the Reliance Foundation, one of the largest non profit making foundations. She is also an art collector, philanthropist and the owner of the Indian Premier League cricket team Mumbai Indians. Born in 1963 in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.
Finally, here’s Movieclips from the 1989 film starring Kevin Costner, Field of Dreams: