bigger than that
I lay awake last night, some nine hours before my last exam scheduled for 9am this morning, and sometime between 12:01 and 12:37 (yes, AM) I realised that I was lying awake. This was only mildly perplexing – I’ve been studying late so my body clock is shunted forward (yes, again). But still, I have an exam the next same day and I find myself lying awake, staring at the ceiling.
I continued to lie awake and began to realise during these quiet moments of continued wakefulness the vastness of my current predicament. The room faded and diminished as I considered the first twelve months of the rest of my life.
In twelve hours, I considered, I would be finished yet another semester of my meaningful but prolonged and at times tedious pursuit of a law degree. I would then have four weeks of holidays with little prospect of much part time work but a whole lot of opportunity to relax, take deep breaths and widen my perspective.
It was at that moment I realised why I was still lying awake on the eve of another arbitrary milestone – because I really, really don’t want to stuff this up.
I realise the world is large and that there are many others around like me. While I have always been, and continue to be, a high achiever, I acknowledge that I’m not the sharpest mind in my class, my state or my nation, let alone the global community. But I lay awake and dreamed, with a little more hope and a little more ambition than previously, that I might become one of them and join the pursuit of shaping a better world.
It never fails to amaze me how small my worldview becomes at times – macro-focus on minor issues takes the beauty out of the vista. Perhaps it’s out of necessity, or perhaps I don’t know any better. And then, in moments of tranquility and crystal clarity, I realise my error.
In this realisation I urge you, too, dear reader…
Dream big, and then dream bigger than that.
on July 1st, 2007 at 12:48am
Isn’t it amazing that we all to often give advice to someone else that we ourselves need to take hold of. For many times you have encouraged me to dream bigger than anything I have dreamed before. Perhaps it’s easier to encourage the absolute best of someone else before ourselves.
Anyway, dream on young man. I see greatness coming your way!
on July 6th, 2007 at 9:00pm
beware,
with big dreams, come bigger disappointments
on July 7th, 2007 at 1:57pm
But we must experience disappointment to fully understand elation or contentment… So doesn’t that suggest that disappointment is part and parcel of it?
I prefer to dream big and be disappointed than not to dream at all and be nothing.
on July 14th, 2007 at 9:10pm
perhaps to some the nothing that comes with the lack of dreams, or more so the refusal to dream or hope to avoid the inevitable disappointment is where contentment lies. it is far easier to not have a dream then to have big dreams only to have to let them go when one realises that nothing can ever come of their dream.
on July 17th, 2007 at 4:19pm
I am sure that it’s easier to not have a dream, but surely ease and simplicity isn’t the point. When has anything worth doing ever been easy?
No, the point here is that a dream can be far better than originally dreamed, if only you pursue it. And the law of averages (or is it the law of large numbers?) says that the more you dream, and then go after that dream, the sooner one of them will come true.
on July 23rd, 2007 at 9:57am
ease and simplicity aren’t the point. happiness is the point. to be happy without the risk of falling
on July 26th, 2007 at 3:15pm
Being happy without the risk of falling sounds awfully like a hedged bet to me. It also sounds like a very curtailed definition of “happy” too.
I would go on to suggest that such an experience of “happy” is really an experience of resigned discontent. That is, once one has decided that the risk of falling is too great to even contemplate, one is resigned to the idea that the base level of happiness is all one will ever experience. (Notice the use of the passive there…)
Each to their own, naturally, but I do exhort you [all] again to dream big and pursue those dreams with all of your energies. While the risk of falling is great, the reward of dreams come true is much sweeter.