Can you just imagine this. “Chasing that dream that you’ve
always longed for. Doing what makes you come alive.”
Can you feel it? The joy? The buoyancy? Me too, as stated in my previous blogs, even am chasing my dreams. If someone tells you that they are ‘following their dreams’ what would
you say to them? Would you mock and
laugh or would you encourage and support them?
One of the Motivating mentors said in his seminar which i
attended, "It’s what you were put on this earth for! Your dreams are the reason why you are here,
why you live and breathe today. For you
to be happy, fulfilled and in love with life you must follow your dreams
because they matter!!"
For me there are no arguments here, just facts. However,
living your dreams can come at a price.
Of course it is far easier to settle with the ordinary life, not rocking
the boat or challenging the ‘way things are’. These days, the phrases ‘be yourself’ or ‘be authentic’ are
thrown around so carelessly, that I’m not surprised at the amount of people who
feel frustrated around the whole subject. What makes it even worse, is that
when people say be yourself, it is almost always accompanied with the word
‘just’. Just. “Just be yourself!” They say nonchalantly.
On a practical note, it seems like a myth, mostly propagated
by people who tell you to do what you love. Doing what you love will make you
feel fulfilled. But you don’t need to get paid for it. So if you are
overwhelmed with the task of “doing what you love” you should recognize that
you are totally normal, and maybe you should just forget it. Just do something
that caters to your strengths. Do anything. Doing work and being valued in the
community is important. We become realists. Whatever the hell that means, for
better or worse, we value people with money.
As far as I can see, the happiest people I know of are the
inhabitants of tropical islands or are under the age of 12. There is something
to be said about a child’s mind- the mind that draws a line between what’s real
and what’s imaginary that’s so faint, you have to question whether it’s there
at all. This pulls me to one of Ernest Hemingway’s remarks,
“Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.”
Isn’t that the truth? The difficulty of being authentic gets
lost in translation. It would be nice to live in a world where being yourself
is like breathing, but that’s not where we live.
In simple terms let’s call it, a "Perfectly Cursed
Life", where you can neither follow your dreams nor stay happy with what
you have.
