Dreams, not fantasies….

Rameshwar Singh

In a recent blog post, Seth Godin observes:

“Like a dream come true”

Choose your dreams carefully.

Everyone is entitled to a dream. It gives us hope, focuses our energy, makes us human.

Sometimes, though, we get sold a dream instead of creating our own.

Is it really every girl’s dream to become a princess, to be chosen by someone of royal birth and to have a $34 million wedding? Or is that the Disney-industrial complex betraying you, selling you short?

I just read that the folks who brought us the Mall of America are going to redo the troubled Xanadu shopping complex in New Jersey and rename it The American Dream. Is this the best we can do? Shop?

Dreams are too important to sell cheap, to give over to some organization trying to make a buck.

*     *     *

To me, dreams are visions of what could be. We realize that they haven’t happened yet but some dreams are so powerful that they inspire us to make them come true. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. offers the best example of such a compelling vision when he concluded his speech on August 28, 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial.

As for fantasies, they resemble dreams but can cause all manner of serious problems if we delude ourselves to think that what we envision has already happened.

In anticipation of winning a state lottery, many people spend money they don’t have, to buy what they don’t need, using credit cards because they have no cash. Their fantasy is delusional.

All great human achievements began with a bold, compelling dream.

Fantasies are essentially harmless unless perceived to be realities.

The damage they can then do is incalculable. Beware.

Advertisement