Propensity to Dream

"Dream as if you’ll live forever…live as if you’ll die today." - Quotes related to dreams are not uncommon in our daily lifes. Who could blame us when dreams are what maketh a man. It builds us, inspires us in ways never imaginable. Dreams are aplenty but how many of you realised those dreams?

Who could forget the admirable creator of Disneyland, Walt Disney who had practically built a whole new wonderland by dreaming like a child. I even read an article about the favorite past-time of my favorite celebrity singer, Sammi Cheng saying that her favorite past-time is day-dreaming. How could someone so successful relish in doing something so idle, you would ask. But that is exactly how people could dream big and went on to achieve bigger things in life.

My inspiration to blog about this came from reading an article in The Star in the section of "Malaysians Abroad." It is about Irene Ng, a Malaysian who dreamt about being a lawyer but her journey to United States had pathed her into areas less than what she dreamt of. From acting in "The Mystery Files of Shelby" and "The Joy Luck Club" to attending Harvard to being a top banker in Merrill Lynch. At 30, she had achieved far more than a typical Malaysian could achieve or even anyone triple her age. And that was because she lived on a dream and was not afraid to take various paths to achieve it. I for one have been dreaming of going to the United States as this is a country where you could live an American dream. I just love Amy Tan's quote about the meaning of an American Dream: is the American freedom to create your own identity. I think that's uniquely American. In no other country do you have that opportunity. It's not to say that everything will happen fairly and the way that you want. But I think that this is a country where that opportunity -- to be as wild as you want, as generous as you want, as crazy as you want, as artistic as you want, that all of that, the whole range -- exists. And we have a Constitution, a tradition, a culture that supports that. I hope it continues to support that. I hope it especially continues to support the arts in that direction. It is that self-determination of your identity, to define what it means to be an American, and that nobody defines that for you.

Is dreaming country-specific? I think not. Have you ever heard of a Malaysian dream? If no, let's make some. After all, MALAYSIA BOLEH, or am I just being too naive?

Sometimes life takes us on a merry-go-round; our duty is to go along the journey and decide the animal to ride on that will bring us to where we are destined to go. And in the end, it is the journey that matters, not the destination. So good luck to all of those dreamers out there, whether you are a writer dreaming to be an international author, a saccharine sweet pretty girl dreaming to be an established model, a corporate worker dreaming to be on top of the ladder or a mother dreaming of a blessed future for her children. All of us have the propensity to dream and to realise those dreams. Never give up! Same goes to me.