DREAMS NEED LIFE...

“If wishes were horses, even beggars would ride them.”

This morning, a young boy was telling me that he wanted to start his own company!

“Why not?” I thought, “He certainly can.”

When I first landed in Mumbai, about thirty-three years ago, I too was dreaming like this boy did. “I want to start something on my own,” I was telling myself and my close ones around. 

Luckily, I had picked-up a book on the roadside. “Whatever a man’s mind conceives and believes, it can achieve!” A young, raw boy like me needed this ‘booster pumping’ from Napoleon Hill’s timeless classic – ‘Think & Grow Rich’.

I haven’t become ‘financially very rich’… But, certainly, I have achieved whatever my mind had ‘conceived’ and ‘believed in’.

So, whenever a young, raw boy or girl declares his dream – call it his desire to build his castles in the air, if you like – I don’t laugh. I really don’t. 

If a simple, unpolished boy, like me, could achieve his little dream, then, I must believe that someone like me would. 

The boy, this morning, was telling me about his ‘big dreams’. He wasn’t inhibited or intimidated… It was good to see a young man so confident.

I wished him luck. I told him that if he pursued his dream, gave whatever it demanded of him, he would achieve his dream.

He thanked me. 

What is demanded of this young man?

First thing first: Is he just ‘wishing’ or is he ‘dreaming’?

Wishes have no power; dreams have. Wishes don’t come from our passionate soul; our dreams do. Dreams are definite… Our wishes become dreams only when we are definite about what we want to achieve, and when we commit with our whole heart… when we say ‘no’ to things which are hindrance to our goals… when we set a deadline – a time frame to achieve – when we plan, organize ourselves, seek help from every one who matters… when we work extremely hard and smart… When we show dogged determination and stoic perseverance… 

No, not otherwise. 

Otherwise, our wishes would remain only wishes: the proverbial castles in the air!

Dreams need life. 

We have to infuse it… 

with the breath of our souls.

“Hey young man, how many hours do have in a day?” I feel like asking every young man who wants to build his castles. 

“At what time do you wake up? How do you manage your day?”

“Will you walk miles of distance, when there is nothing in your wallet? Are you prepared to remain on one meal a day… even to go to bed hungry?”

“Are you ready to withstand cynicism and opposition on your way?"

“What if you fail? Sorry, will you stick to it when you keep facing defeats?”

A hundred more questions had popped up in my mind, when I was raw and young.

They still do… every time a young man – raw and dreaming – declares his desire to build castles.

The basics have not changed. They will not!

The old saying will, forever, remain new:

 

“If wishes were horses… Yes, even beggars would ride them!”

GERALD D’CUNHA

Pics.: Lionel Saldanha