keninabu!

What is your Dream?

This was a question asked of me by my kinesiology prof.

He started talking about the example of medical school: "How many pre-meds (i.e. college kids who intend to go on to medical school in the US) are there here?" and he went on talking about the length of time and the amount of money needed... and at the end of it, do you want to be a doctor who hates his job?

Or let's put it this way: would you want to see a doctor who hates his job? Imagine stepping into the doctor's office, and the first thing he says after looking into your throat is, "I hate this. I hate looking into your freaking throat, or anyone's throat. I hate all of this. I'm sick of doing this every day for hours on the end"?
Imagine this doctor telling you that you have a tumour, or an ulcer, or anything: would you believe him?

Most people think that a dream is a goal, and they confuse the two. They say things like "my dream is to be a doctor", or "my dream is to be an engineer". As he correctly points out, a lot of these things are really not our dreams, but frequently our PARENT'S dreams.

He gave us a new definition of a dream:

A dream is a feeling that refuses to go away, and that spurs you into action.

I think my problem is not about generating ideas, or getting excited about ideas, but about the sheer quantity of ideas which I develop in my head.

To give you an example, in the past few months, I have

a) decided to be a consultant, because I decided I like solving problems, and exploring different fields
b) contemplated setting up my own Vietnamese food chain in Singapore, selling proper Vietnamese food instead of the pathethic crap masquerading as Vietnamese
c) thought of writing a travel guide
d) decided to enter the renewable energy market in China and India with a company
e) enter graduate school and earn a Master's degree with someone.

If you were to ask me now to make a choice between all of the above, I would have a huge headache, and have to plead insanity: can I do all of them?

Essentially, all of these ideas bring a thrill to me, and in reality, I really want to do all of the above: the renewable energy idea stuck to my head one day, and refused to budge, and I was so excited I wasn't able to sleep properly that night. Same thing for the Vietnamese food idea. If dreams are feelings, then I think these dreams all pass that litmus test.

What I probably need is more focus than anything else... focus, and the discipline to stick to my choice.

That's why I've been learning how to meditate the past few days, and practicing every morning at around 7am or so, to give myself some discipline. We will have to see if this actually works in a few days... the past few days, I've been desperately wanting sleep (and not getting it), thanks to my lack of discipline in the night.

posted by keninabu @ 9:45 PM