CARRY YOUR DREAMS WITH YOU, by Bob Banter

Carry Your Dreams With You..!
How often we see people who’ve grown old; eyes filled with misery, their body language that of a listless person, their gestures hopeless! What happened? We ask silently. Where did things start going wrong? Didn’t you have dreams like others when you were young? What happened to those dreams?

Here’s a little illustration I’m going to use today:

There were once 2 brothers who lived on the 80th floor. On coming back to their building one day, they realized to their dismay that the lifts were not working and they’d have to climb the stairs up.
After struggling to the 20th floor, panting and tired, they decided to abandon their bags and come back for them the next day. They left their bags there and climbed on. When they have struggled to the 40th level, the younger brother started to grumble and both of them began to quarrel. They continued to climb the flights of steps, quarreling all the way to the 60th floor.
They then realized that they have only 20 floors more to climb and decided to stop quarreling and continue climbing in peace. They silently walked up and reached their home at long last. Each stood calmly before the door and waited for the other to open the door.
And then to their horror they realized that the key was in their bags which they’d left behind on the 20th floor
This little story reflects what happens in some of our lives, doesn’t it?

Many of us when young dream big dreams, but like others, live also under the constant expectations of parents, teachers and friends. This pressure starts building up, and some of us instead of holding onto our aspirations, start listening only to the expectations of others and throw away what we imagine we want and follow what others expect of us. So around the age of 20 we get tired and decide to dump our dreams.
Being free of that stress and pressure and having youthful energy on our side we work enthusiastically and try to be ambitious in what we are doing.
But by the time we reach 40 years old, we realize that just ambition by itself cannot keep us going. We begin to feel dissatisfied and start to complain and criticize. We live life with misery, as we are never satisfied.

Reaching 60, we realize we have little left for complaining anymore, and try to walk the final years of our life in peace and calmness imagining there is nothing left to disappoint us, only to realize that we cannot be at peace with ourselves because there are unfulfilled dreams which we’ve left behind, dreams we abandoned 60 years ago.

Those dreams haunt us; maybe you see a writer and wonder why you’re a businessman when you once dreamt of writing or wanted to be an actress and now a housewife.

So here’s some advice: Don’t wait to reach the eightieth floor before finding out you’ve left your keys behind: Whatever age you are, whichever floor you are on, stop, feel your pocket and if your dreams aren’t with you, retrieve them, and start all over again!

Then when you reach 80, you’ll smile and tell all around as you jangle the keys in your bag, “I carried my dreams with me..!”