Friday, June 4, 2010

Reality

His friend told him about her dream of getting a job, asking her parents to stop sending her money and completing her education on her own to feel independent. He asked her "why?" and I had to ask him "why not!"




He said that realistically she'll be done with her education, which wouldn't matter anyway because then she'll get married. Added, why have a dream out of your realm, a dream that is illusional and not realistic. I said because it's called a dream, a dream can always start somewhere and either go nowhere or go somewhere. We argued, I insisted that there was nothing wrong with his friend's wish, he insisted that she was just talking to impress him.


I had to bring up the possibility that maybe she wanted to impress herself, not him, maybe she wanted to feel that she's in control of her life, that she's writing her destiny. Then I thought of his "Realistic" word.


I wonder if all those celebrities (and by celebrities I don't mean only the entertainment domain, but in business, sports and politics as well), wondered if their dream should adapt to reality, would they be where they are today?

So what is reality? if you have a dream, should it be realistic? There are way too many inspiring stories out there about people who had a dream, shared it with the world, got mocked and ridiculed, insulted too. But they protected it, believed in it and never gave up on making it come true.


As I was listening to him talking about his friend, I couldn't help but think of John Mayer's song No Such Thing where he sings "I just found out there's not such thing as the real world, it's just a lie you've got to rise above".

I wish I could meet his friend to tell her, "Dream, and believe in yourself, dream for yourself, not for people. And if dreams have to be in accordance to certain limitations, then dreams are killed before they were born".