D is for . . . Dreams

Image courtesy: Raj Manchekar

My dearest darlings,

Gather nigh, and let's get to know more about the fourth letter of the English alphabet. It's D for desk in your book and Dreams in mine.

Right now, La Niña, your dreams are still fluid. One day you want to be a doctor, saving people's lives. The next day, it is something else.

You may wonder what dreams have to do with that utilitarian looking desk. Dreams conjure up a world of airy castles, set in, say, The Hundred Acre Wood, where Pooh and his friends reside. How could anyone achieve their dreams sitting behind that boring desk? Who would willingly confine themselves to such a prison?

The fact is that dreams don't come true magically. You have to make them work. You have to face the obstacles that will come hurtling down your path from the moment your heart gives shelter to a fledgling dream. You have to be prepared to suffer rejection, feel fear, and be constrained by a lack of discipline, focus and motivation. These are the millstones that will drain your strength, sap you of the energy to do something worthwhile with your life.

Just look your obstacles squarely in the eye and tell them you will not be bullied or cowered. You owe it to yourself to fight for your dreams.

I will make a confession to you, my niños. I once had a dream. Then I got married to your Dadda and the dream was shunted to the back pocket of my jeans, a little out of reach. And then you two came along, and immersed as I was in our own little wonderland, I lost the dream. It's still there, but I don't wear those jeans anymore. They don't fit.

Today there is a hole in my heart where the dream should have been.

When asked what happened to those dreams, I would talk about you, how you took up all my time. For ever so long, I didn't even realise how unfair I was being to you. After all, you hadn't come in the way of my dreams. I had. 

There's a lesson in this for you, and no less for me. The world wants no part of your dreams or mine. Sure, if they come true, it will come rushing in, to bask in the sunshine of a dream come true. But it wants no part of the drudgery.

You have to go after your dreams with the sense of audaciousness with which you come chasing after me when we play. You have to follow it with single-minded dedication, while your playmates are having a good time. You have to follow it in spite of rejection slips and rebuffs.

A dream is a delicate thing. It wants nourishment and commitment. Once it senses fear and hesitation in you, it loses the strength to go on. It shrivels up and dies.

Don't ever settle for less than you dreamed. Life is a very just and fair paymaster. It gives you exactly what you ask of it, not a paisa more or less.

Don't ever let anyone else thrust their dreams on you. (Note to self: You know what that means.)

My wish for you is that your dreams may be so big that you have no choice but to grow yourself in order to fit into them. That you may roll up your sleeves and set about doing the thing that you feel called to do. 

That's it for today. I'll see you tomorrow.

La Niña, I wish you a very Happy Birthday, my little baby. God bless you.