Dreams that Matter

I have a dream, a song to sing... the song that had won the hearts of millions had also caught my attention. What ever the dreams meant to the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud and his companion Carl Jung, we know that it is the dreams that sustain our hope for a better tomorrow. But how often we come across people who have no dreams. They are half-dead; even while living, they are like somnambulists, sleep-walkers. But there is yet another category of people whose dreams are throttled at a very young age, or those whose dreams are stolen... those who wish to dream and are only too scared to, because they may not be able to bear the consequences, were their dreams come true. Even to dream of a better future is controlled by the whims and fancies of a select few, even in our own society.

If there is one malady that the world is going through today, it is the lack of dreams... we are so used to the kind of life that we are presented on a platter, that we are more than happy with the things around us, and want no more. A new form of complacency and mediocrity has set into the modern living. One of the greatest tragedies which could sound the deathknell of humanity surely is the lack of dreamers.... When I talk of dreamers, I don't necessarily think of great stalwarts as Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi or Nelson Mandela. That was one kind of dreamers who were instrumental in transforming the face of the earth. But we need dreamers who would transform not necessarily the world around, but the small society I live in.

Dreamers are in fact role models that the present world is craving for; role models in all walks of life... hero/heroine worship had been so rampant in our country that we would take so seriously the reel-life heros and heroines, not realising that it was their profession and not way of life. On the other hand the society had been blind and deaf to the real heros and heroines, who had lived and died quietly, without making any noise, and their spirit may live in a handful of men and women whom they were able to touch within the short span of their lives. It is only those who have dream for the world, will be able to stand as a role model... sharing the dream of others is only one way of shaping the world, but it has to evolve from meeting of dreams, not merely adopting another's dream.

Unfortunately at no time of our education in schools and colleges are we taught to dream; what to dream, how to dream, when to dream... these are the questions that are not taken up during our growth period. I am surprised that there are no business schools which have begun courses in dreaming big; who knows it may be a reality very soon. But no one can deny the fact that those who fail to dream are stuck up on the midway, and may remain there all their lives. During my younger days, I used to see my elder brother writing on every notebooks with bold letters "THINK BIG"; but I think I had begun to think bigger than him, after about two scores years.

Dreaming big is nothing that takes us away from the reality we live in; rather it takes us close to the potentiality we are capable of. If I am a tree which can bear ten tonnes of fruits, I should be able to bear all those fruits, and should not be content with producing only five tonnes. That is what dreams do in our lives... pushing us inch by inch towards the full potentiality of what we truly are... And the glory of God is man/woman fully alive... Saint Augustine is credited to have said this, and in our own terms, we would rephrase it as, the glory of God is in human persons reaching their full potentiality. To put in spiritual terms, God is glorified when a human person reaches his/her full potentiality, for the maker knows that the purpose of making this person is greately fulfilled, and that can be the great joy both for the maker and the made.