Dream Vs Reality

Hey all!!!

I come from a place where most of the residents are engineers. Over the past five years, I have observed that parents are becoming more and more cautious about their children's education. What's wrong with that? After all, who doesn't want his/her child to be a successful citizen. But, during summer of 2010, when I was there spending my vacations with my family, something disturbing happened. I was told that, children of 8th standard are under going coaching classes for IIT-JEE prep. Parents want their children to crack IIT-JEE in the first possible attempt. I felt, some kind of IIT mania is going over there. Does a 8th standard student really know what an IIT is?? Will he/she be able to appreciate the essence of engineering? I don't think so. Then why are they frittering away their cherished childhood for something, they are ignorant about? I spoke to some of the guardians, trying to figure out why they all wished to see their children becoming an IITian. They told me that, IIT has become an international brand today, which promises handsome pay-checks and to some extent job security too. No other thing can make you feel as much safe as the assurance of getting a nice job after becoming an IITian. Somewhere in their mind, they have started feeling "if neighborhood child can get into an IIT, why not mine"? But, feeling this conversation would go towards an argument, I just smiled and chose to leave it at that. Frankly speaking, I couldn't sleep at all the very night thinking to what extent the society has forced the young minds to follow the safe path instead of fulfilling their dreams.  

Are we really born to fit merely in the jigsaw puzzle of society, tweak ourselves so that we fit in, so that we are not thrown out as someone who doesn't complete the ideal picture of the society? And what if, we start to paint a new picture, start building a new kind of world, bring in some changes that are never tried before? We all had some crazy ideas and dreams when we were kids. When you were asked "What do you want to become in the future", you never said "I wish to pursue a job that can fetch me a handsome salary" or "I want a job that can provide me so and so services". You wanted to do something exciting , that you were passionate about. You must have replied, you wanted to become an astronaut, dancer, musician, composer, businessman etc. I can bet none of you even thought if that would give you enough money for your expenses. You just wanted to pursue your dreams and turn them into reality.

Then why we lose all the passion, the interest, the strength to keep our dreams alive as we grow up.What has stopped us from following our heart rather than our brain? Why does money get the chance to decide what we want to become? Why do we stop thinking about what we love? The answer is we are influenced by the guaranteed paycheck to that fearful extent that we have started convincing ourselves and people around us that they should opt so and so profession without knowing whether he/she would be interested in pursuing it or not. This is all wrong.

What are we waiting for? A perfect day when all stars would line up in just the right direction and we would be guaranteed success? It never works that way. That moment of glory never arrives. All circumstances will almost never be in our favor. There will always be something that would be challenging.True success is not money driven, it's driven by love and passion. We've got to love what we are doing and we've got to be passionate about it. One might earn a lot of money but will never be self satisfied. You will always think "May be I should have given a fair chance to my dreams", "May be I should have taken some more risks in my life". It's never late to pursue your dreams. Just get out and try to do what you have always dreamt of doing.

 "The indispensable first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: decide   what you want" Ben Stein