Everyday Canvas

Dwelling on Dreams, Big or Small

Prompt: "It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live." JK Rowlings Do you agree with this?


----------------------------------

I neither agree nor disagree with the quote. Life depends on circumstances, and each of us faces different circumstances. After the circumstances, what influences the way we handle life is the scope of our dreams.

For some, dwelling in dreams is a way out. During the Second World War prisoners held by the Japanese had to dwell on their dreams of being rescued or succeeding to make an escape, while they were under lock and key. They had no other choice. For others, dwelling in dreams may mean resolving to a great idea like finding a cure for an impossible illness.

On the other hand, in a free society, if someone dreams of making big in business, without an education, without money, and worse yet without a nose for business, chances are he won’t make it, and he will flit away his precious time starting and losing one business after another.

Even so, I love dreams and dreamers. If we dream and try for our dreams, we may come closer to fulfilling them than we think possible. Through dreaming, we can change ourselves, the tendencies of the people around us, and as a long shot, the entire world. Through dreaming of a peaceful world, when we change the way we see life from a negative view to a more hopeful one, we might be able to awaken an awareness in other people, too.

After all, weren’t Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, and most of the great authors, musicians, and artists dreamers? Didn’t King repeatedly encourage the crowds in August 1963 at the Lincoln Memorial with the words, “I have a dream…” and didn’t Nelson Mandela in his 1994 inaugural address tell the crowds, “Your playing small does not serve the world…”?

Dwelling on dreams sometimes does work. At other times, we have to be careful not to waste our lives away on impossible dreams, or like Don Quixote, we will end up fighting the windmills, even if fighting for any dream is a romantic notion.