Do you dare to dream? Or more specifically put, do you have your own aspirations?

A few days ago, I was watching 'Qualifications of Men' (남자의 자격), an entertainment programme on the  KBS World channel. For those who are not familiar with the show, it's about a group of seven men, mostly in their prime, completing missions given each episode (such as learning how to tap dance or host a new year party). The episode I watched had this mission for the men: to give a lecture to students who aspire to be like them. 

(Image from here)

Each of them decided to take on a topic since they are from different backgrounds. One decided to give interview tips for aspiring TV announcers (he is an announcer himself), a comedian gave a speech about the difficulties he faced when he was still a newbie in the industry, so on and so forth. They might be talking about different jobs - one is even an ex-baseball player - but all spoke about having their own goals and the lessons they have learnt from their experience. 

One of the speeches I really liked was Kyungkyu-shi's. I must say here that the rest of the stuff in this post is what I think of Kyungkyu-shi's way of thinking and not what he said exactly. He sounded pretty ludicrous at the start.  Well, I'm not sure if I interpreted his words correctly, but Kyungkyu-shi's main points were pretty unique. One which he mentioned was that most of our dreams would never come true. It's a reality we have to face up to. Sure, I could dream of being a company president. It is achievable. It is probable. But somewhere in my mind, I know that it's not my only dream. I have other more possible dreams. Like being a writer. I'm studying to be one anyway.

But (yes, there's always the but), Kyungkyu-shi never said we should not dream too. I think everyone needs a dream to live, as opposed to just simply existing. Dreams are what makes us happy. Some might call it a false sense of purpose, but at least it pushes us forward in our lives all the same. Instead of just going forward blindly towards your dream, understand that it might not come true all the same. Maybe I should phrase it in another way instead of making it seem like we need to prepare for failure.... I guess we should take a realistic approach in reaching our goals. Work slowly towards it. Understand that our goals would change over time. 

And so what if we don't achieve our dreams? When you see your parents complaining about their horrible day cooped up in their cramped cubicles, they might actually be thinking of their dreams in their head. There is a difference between what you can do and what you enjoy. Everyone wants to do something they can enjoy. It's just that your parents need to bring the dough to the table and their jobs gives them just that. They'd rather do what they can do rather than to have the family starve. They need their jobs. Reality makes it so. I don't know if everyone agrees with me on this, but dreams are sort of like nourishment for the soul. 'I dislike my job at this bistro - it's boring me to tears! If only I can have my own chain of sandwich shops someday.' By thinking the latter, the individual gets fired up. He might not get to own a sandwich shop in the end, but he would work hard in his current job to earn enough capital for that goal. Or he might even decide that he'd rather direct his own film one day, but he would still work hard. 

I feel so much better after typing all that out. Hopefully, all that might make some sense to you all. If it doesn't just take it as an incoherent person rambling her thoughts. 

Well, don't I sound older than my age now?