+ Of dReamZ and |dea|s +

Today, I had a little chat with this xiao mei mei who's working in my company as a part time office girl. She had just gotten her 'O' Levels results and gotten a place in NYP. But that course she got into wasn't what she wanted, and feeling rather dejected. And she was contemplating whether to pursue her dream course, and weighing the pros and cons and risk factors.

And then we started chatting about dreams(meng xiang) and ideals(li xiang).

She said, her dream is to produce music. Be an audio mixer or whatever, just be someone who can create nice music. But, since dreams can never come true, she shall never be one.

I said, "No..! Dreams can come true!" (As usual, my antics.)

Then she said, "Yah. People become famous because of their dreams." And she went on, saying that how nice it is to make your dream a reality, pursuing a dream career, doing what you love and have great passion in. How blissful that would be.

And I said, "that's an ideal."

She objected, "no. It's a dream."

I insisted, "that's an ideal. There is a difference between a dream and an ideal". (No idea why i insisted. Just felt it's different)

She thinks for a while.

I continued, "dreams is more of a guide. Ideals is more of the path."
And i shocked myself. Because these words just shot out of my mouth but i don't really understand them.

The girl thought she understood, "Ok. I think I know. It's like my dream is to do music, but my ideal would be to get into business and earn bigger bucks with better future prospects? Like a dream is to do what you love while ideal is to be really practical and be successful in reality?"

Now this feels even more wrong. and i rambled on without much sense.

"A dream is about what you love, passion is about why you love, and an ideal is about actually getting down to doing it."

How does this sound? Anyway the girl goes on to talk about how a career should work. One has to have passion in what he is doing in order to be able to continue doing it for the rest of his life. That would be to make his dream, his passion into his career.

As i listened to her, it suddenly occur to me as if I'm looking at a younger me. Those words would have been what I would have said many years ago. But I know that even when many years back as i say those idealistic words, deep in my heart i still knew a fact. And though i know it is cruel, i felt i still have to remind her about that fact.

"To be able to combine passion and career would of course have been the best. But always bear in mind that many people, in the process of pursuing their dream as their life career, they actually burn out their passion." I guess she understood, because she agreed.

But on my way home, i kept thinking, how do i define dreams and ideals? I concluded that, a dream is like a guiding light. It shows you the direction. Ideals are like the paths towards the light. And to reach the light, there can be many paths to choose from. So perhaps the challenge in life would be,
1) To find out what is your dream?
2) How to turn your dream into an ideal?
3) How to achieve your ideal?

Perhaps we can say, we cannot directly achieve our dreams, but we can achieve our ideals. Yet once we have achieved our ideals, it would also still mean you have achieved your dreams. Sounds confusing?

Let's say for 2 examples.

1st example: My dream is to be a singer, because I love to sing, and I want to let many people hear me and feel my passion for singing. To break it down, my passion is in singing, and my ideal is to be a singer. Instantly, everyone will think about the famous glamorous pop singers. But if i can't be the next Stephanie Sun or Rain, i can still achieve my dream! Other alternatives would be to sing in cafes, or sing in Ge-Tais, or sing in open lounges, or simply tape my songs and upload into the net for all to hear. All these are ideals too. If I only want to be a famous singer, then my passion would have been to become famous, not in singing.

2nd example: My dream is to be a doctor, so that i can relieve people of pain and help others lead a healthy life. However I'm too stupid and can't get into the medicine course in university. But i can take up first aid course and read up on health articles. Even if i can't be a qualified doctor, i can still be a medic during emergencies, and give advice to the people around me how to live healthier. You are still achieving your dream.

You don't have to make your dream/passion your career. Being a singer or a doctor is just the most straightforward way that's all.

We may all have the same dream, but each of us has our own ideals towards achieving it. That is the difference.

Anyway we've all heard of cases when people burn out their passion when they face the harsh facts of life while pursuing their dreams, so i shall not harp on that. But that thing is, i know all the above, alternatives or not, sounds so unreel and idealistic. But that's what ideals are. Ideals are meant to be idealistic. The challenge would be, how to turn your dreams into your ideals and how to work towards it.

Another formula again:

(the purest passion) + (all the practicality elements) = your ideal life

Once your ideal life is attained, you have realized your dreams. Even if you didn't manage to attain the ideal life, you are still in your correct direction, which is still as good! That is why, "

人因夢想而偉大"!!

Conclusion, dreams really can be achieved! The rest would be up to you to find out how to do that.

Perhaps that explains my last advice to the little girl about the fact. Maybe i want her to know that, even if she can't achieve her dreams using the most direct way, there are still many other ways. So long as she doesn't forget what is her truest dream, her purest passion, and keeps working towards it, someday, she may just achieve it!