Dreams – No Pain, No Gain!

I was talking to a child finishing school today. Her mother manages to keep her family of four by doing manual labour. This child wants to do her BBA and enter the hospitality industry. The three year degree course is going to cost her over Rs 2 lac. I can see a dream glinting in her eyes though her means are hardly anything to take her through to her dream.

What makes the humans tick but for their dreams! While mankind is familiar with great leaders who had a dream and achieved them through their skillful endeavors, there are millions of ordinary beings with limited or no means who have managed to attain their dreams too. In my opinion these are the real heroes. For the rich and powerful having a clear dream is the only requirement. But for ordinary humans, finding a way to their dreams is a task besot with a thousand challenges. Long time ago, 14 years to be precise, I met a child who was completing her B Arch. Like every typical Indian father, her papa was keen that she finishes her B Arch, gets into a job and gets married. She had a different dream. She wanted to do her Masters in Arch and go on to become a renowned architect! Since her father was known to me, one day he came over and asked me to talk to her and convince her to do his bidding. So she came to see me.

In a long time thereafter, I have not come across another child with such clarity of thought and convictions. Over the two or three hours that we spoke, I was truly impressed by her zest to seek what she sought. She had everything worked out and supremely confident that she will make it. Her dream, simply put, was to do M Arch from University of Arizona and then make it big! Why Arizona? It was the best Univ for Arch in her opinion, after considerable research. She wouldn’t settle for anything but the best. There was only one hitch. She was so devoted to her parents that she wanted to take it on only with her parents consent. So at the end of our session, I took it upon myself to speak to her father and convince him to say ‘yes’. We spoke to a bank manager who agreed to extend a loan and went about getting her passport, et al. And the girl did what she had to do – took the entrance exams and other related tests, obtained such a high score that an impressed Univ offered her full scholarship! Her father did not need to take a loan.

It is not what we dream about but how convinced we are about our dream. We need to work too. No dream ever comes true without an honest endeavor. No pain, no gain!