Lost dreams

I want to become a doctor.

I want to become a teacher.

I want to become a pilot.

I want to become an astronaut.

I want to become Sachin Tendulkar.

I want to become a truck driver.

The most common answers to the question, ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’

A very famous-THE-most-important question asked to kids and these are their answers. In these answers lie their dreams, their aspirations and adult’s humor. The question has become too cliché and the answers have become even more cliché that no one pays any heed to them anymore. “Hah! He’s saying this now, wait for 4 years, he’ll change his mind.” The first thing that a kid’s ears catch is that statement after they have revealed their dreams. It’s just another statement to us, but for them, it’s the first push towards a road much travelled, a road that leads them to a point where they start believing that these dreams might just not come true. First thought of failure is thus incepted in their mind.

While many in-a-subtle-yet-ignorant-way demoralize their kids, some encourage theirs to dream. And dream big. But what they fail to tell their kids is that few years down the line their lives will be much more than just trying to fulfill their dreams. Males will have to take up the responsibility of the house and females will have to take up the daily chores. And both will have to study their asses off and score good, because hey, you cannot achieve your dreams unless you score good. The sound of that line is drilled into their tiny heads from the start.

Years go by and so does the question about what they’d want to become. Life gets so busy that you never think about the answer, mostly because you are never asked that question again. You are not 8 anymore, means you are in the rat race. Who cares about what you had wanted to become 4 years back? Do you?

Managing studies, home, chores, our entertainment, playing, sitting with parents, getting proper sleep, etc and the list goes on. Years go by and the list keeps on increasing. And before you know it, you are graduating with a degree you never knew of when you were young. Odds are, it’s not even in the direction of your childhood dream. But you keep going. You’re in the rat race, whether you like it or not.

Eventually, you will get a job. You’ll work. You’ll marry and have kids. Grow old and one day while sitting on the porch, waiting for your death to take over, you will decide to look back on your life (Well, apparently I have heard that old people kinda knows when their death is around the corner).

For one moment, you’ll think what was it you had dreamt of doing when you were a kid? Alas, it’ll be harder to remember than you thought it’d be.

It’s a scary place to be. So stop. And think.

What was it that you wanted to become when you grow up?

You have grown up. Now is the time to chase after your dreams. Now is the time when you should remember your dreams, and if you cannot remember then make new dreams. Because if you don’t, one day you’ll find yourself sitting with your laptop, thinking about what your dreams were and almost dying inside after realising you don’t remember your dreams.

That very moment, you’ll be lost. Lost in a way that can never be explained. Being lost is a feeling that can only be felt and then understood. Let’s hope by the time you realise you are lost, it isn’t too late.