Monday, February 22, 2010

Is aspiration the only requirement for success?
Is motivation the only underlying theme we need
for our inevitable victory?

Sometimes I think that's all it takes.
We just need to want it badly enough. Reach high and
somehow you will achieve greatness.
Other times, I think that's a load of crap that my second
grade teacher, Mrs. Courren, started telling me.
"You can do anything you set your mind to."
"Believe in yourself."
"Dream big."
And all that other bologna, these overly-encouraging
teachers shove down their ignorant students' throats.

I mean think about it. I could say that I aspire to be an Olympic
athlete. I mean, c'mon, who doesn't?
I would love to receive a gold medal in marathon runnning.
Again, who wouldnt?

But just because I want this or dream about it doesn't
exactly make this possible. A 5'1'' little white gal who averages
an 8.5 min pace and has to take 5 strides for every one of yours
isn't exactly "olympian" material.
Right? Right.

Today I got my first short story back. B. I can't think of a worse grade.
To me, B says "average, ordinary, eh." That's not exactly something
I want my teacher to be thinking after reading something I put so
much time and energy in.
So immediately following class, of course, I had a mid-college
"What-the-heck-am-I-going-to-do-with-my-life" crisis.
[The best pick-me-ups I have found consist of Cane's chicken
and Glee music. Put together for best results]

I want to be a writer, an editor for a large publishing house.
I have an internship. I read all the time. I frequently practice writing.
But is that enough?
Is this aspiration, this dream all I need?

At what point do we stop "dreaming" and start "seeing"?
I think I need a strong dose of realism from time to time in order
to keep myself from wanting too much.
I don't want to be like the 8-year-old I nanny, who desperately
wants to be an NBA player. Sure, it's cute. But it's not going to
happen. I mean, take one look at him and you'd agree.

I sound a bit pessimistic, don't I?
I guess I'm just trying to put things in perspective.

Sure, I'm "working" toward my goal. I'm not just audibly saying that
it's something I want to do like my silly Olympic dream.
But, even with all this hard work, who's to say that it won't all
be in vain? Who's to say that I could work the hardest, be the
most diligent and most emphatic about wanting this to occur...
yet it still may never happen for me.

I guess the answer is to be a mixture, a "reamer" if you will.
We shouldn't stray away from our dreams, yet we should
have a proper perspective for our possibilities.
After all, what are we without dreams and goals?

I guess I just don't want to be blindsided. I don't want to look
up from my the pages of my life in 5 or 10 years and wonder
why it didn't work out the way I hoped, the way I planned.

I want to dream big, but in a realistic sphere. I want to be
a reamer.

"We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers
of the dream. Wandering by lone sea breakers, and sitting by desolate
streams. World losers and world forsakers, for whom the pale moon
gleams. Yet we are movers and the shakers of the world forever it seems.”

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