In Pursuit of Dreams By Yaqeen Ul Haq Ahmad Sikander

Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world. Harriet Tubman
We, humans are the most complex and strange creatures shaped by the Gods hand. Humans possess a strong intellect, yet the emotions of love, hope, fear and trust significantly govern our lives. All of us live by hope and dream to reach par excellence. We all desire to arise and exalt by the innate God given potentials lying within each of our souls. Humans, being most unique, have been all bestowed with diverse talents and creativity which maintains the needs and balance of nature, while simultaneously helping us to selfactualize, enjoying and living every moment in this world. But most of the times, following our inner potential and dreams is not an easy task. Our surroundings make us believe that our dreams are impossible, until we give up and, thus, gets our vision blurred, with our dreams curbed and the incertitude of future gripping us from all corners. Dreams and a vision for life are essential tools without which life can only be survived, not lived. As Lanston Hugues said Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly. The imagination and power to dream of excellence in ones talents and potential is a sublime quality which must not be compromised at any cost. For me there is nothing wrong to build castles of dreams and ambitions in air, just a foundation is needed to make strong those castles and help them withstand every challenge of nature. Living our dreams is something which gives meaning to life and a reason for us to live and excel. It forms the core of human emotions that provides an intrinsic motivation for us to reach and actualise our ambitions and talents. Our vision in life is a significant virtue which grants us a sense of direction to tread our dreams. Life is a meaningful creation of God. It inevitably craves and follows the path of dreams and a vision. So if we neither seek a vision nor a dream to live by, then others take charge of our life and still, we will be living a dream, but not our own. It will be the dream of our parents, relatives, neighbours and friends, whatever they expect us to be, while our inner radiant vision of life, which craves to be fulfilled, lies in slumber. All of us are granted by nature an innate sense to follow our dreams and actualize our potential which often remains dormant because nobody brings it out and encourages its sprout. We live in a world where we must live up to the expectations of all others, except, our own self. We are accustomed to be afraid of pursuing our dreams just because they might not comply with the false and artificial standards set by the society. We see people being rebuked just because they follow their dreams which might be odd and in conflict with

the established norms. We are scared of going against the ongoing current, no matter where it takes us. In his book, The Alchemist, a magical fable about following the dreams, Paulo Coelho rightly says To realize ones destiny is a persons only obligation. To quote, The mere possibility of getting what we want fills the soul of the ordinary person with guilt. We look around at all those who have failed to get what they want and feel that we do not deserve to get what we want either. We forget about all the obstacles we overcame, all the suffering we endured, all the things we had to give up in order to get this far. The question to be asked to our inner selves is this, If we are not living our dreams and vision, then whose dreams are we living? Who governs us and whose course of life have we adopted? The only part which keeps our dreams alive is Hope and believing in ourselves. Listening to our hearts is the best we can do because hearts never lie. Most of us are jumbled and tangled up in wrong places. But remember it is never too late to mend. People have been living others dreams for very long now. Its the time to start anew and live our dreams so that this world doesnt get robbed more of excellent writers, thinkers, artists, designers and all other creative people, who shall be brave enough to leave in pursuit of their dreams and mark their own destinies. As says, The Alchemist, Whoever believes in dreams also knows how to interpret them and when we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better, too.

(The Author is an Undergrad Student majoring in Psychology at International Islamic University, Malaysia. You can email him at yaqeen@ymail.com or read more from him @ www.yaqeenulhaq.info )