There is something very unsettling about ambitions becoming limited. For most people, this is bound to happen with age. Our hopes and dreams tend to be curbed. So that they are more "realistic."
Of course, there are a few those dispassionate, practical (heartless?) people who have some completely pragmatic ambition that they responsibly and predictably pursue for their entire lives. Those lawyers, those accountants who see no need for anything but stability and security. A family. For the rest of us, there is some hope, some dream, that we cling to in sort of a secretive manner while we are young. Maybe I CAN be a musician. Maybe I AM good enough to be a professional athlete. We rarely say that this is what we're so furtively pursuing, but when the question of what it is we're pursuing comes up, we don't know. It is clear where the emphasis lies in our lives, to those who know us.
Of these people, some do end up clinging to these dreams long enough to see some shred of them fulfilled. Even fewer see success in these pursuits and these are quite possibly the happiest people on the planet.
What happens to the rest of us is a different matter entirely. It is a slow, arduous process that separates us from these dreams and grounds is in a harsh reality, makes us acutely aware of our own inadequacies. We eventually reach a certain point and realize that we are now no better than those lawyers and accountants. Hell, they're doing better than us, because they got a head start in the rat race. Now we cling to an even smaller glimmer of hope that someday things will change, that we may be lifted from this mundane reality and thrust into the ideal life we pictured when we were young. But perhaps it isn't complete disappointment. Perhaps we can take what we loved so dearly about our dreams and make it all apparent in our lives, in whatever has been deemed "realistic" most recently. Perhaps it is not an end, but a new beginning.
Of course, there are a few those dispassionate, practical (heartless?) people who have some completely pragmatic ambition that they responsibly and predictably pursue for their entire lives. Those lawyers, those accountants who see no need for anything but stability and security. A family. For the rest of us, there is some hope, some dream, that we cling to in sort of a secretive manner while we are young. Maybe I CAN be a musician. Maybe I AM good enough to be a professional athlete. We rarely say that this is what we're so furtively pursuing, but when the question of what it is we're pursuing comes up, we don't know. It is clear where the emphasis lies in our lives, to those who know us.
Of these people, some do end up clinging to these dreams long enough to see some shred of them fulfilled. Even fewer see success in these pursuits and these are quite possibly the happiest people on the planet.
What happens to the rest of us is a different matter entirely. It is a slow, arduous process that separates us from these dreams and grounds is in a harsh reality, makes us acutely aware of our own inadequacies. We eventually reach a certain point and realize that we are now no better than those lawyers and accountants. Hell, they're doing better than us, because they got a head start in the rat race. Now we cling to an even smaller glimmer of hope that someday things will change, that we may be lifted from this mundane reality and thrust into the ideal life we pictured when we were young. But perhaps it isn't complete disappointment. Perhaps we can take what we loved so dearly about our dreams and make it all apparent in our lives, in whatever has been deemed "realistic" most recently. Perhaps it is not an end, but a new beginning.
