There are so many reasons why some people realize their dreams and others don’t. First and most important, the success of realizing a dream is how realistic the dream is in perspective to the dreamer. That leads us to the second ingredient, how compatible are the dreamers talents, personality and character with the dream itself. These two factors are solely up to the individual. The next factors are external, such as parental support or lack thereof. The importance of parental guidance or the lack thereof can be the biggest part of the achievement or the dream can even be realized in spite of any parental influence. The dynamic between parents and their children is so personal that it does matters for the good or the bad. Educational opportunities or once again, the lack thereof, while not of primordial importance as the parental kind, still has a certain impact. And then there is the matter of luck and that one, no one can predict. I think that luck has a great deal of impact in how far and how successful one can be in attaining ones dream.
Growing up, my dream was to become a doctor. I thought that it was realistic and I thought that I had the smarts to be able to do it. However, in high school, I started having doubts about my scholastic abilities. Math and chemistry were giving me a good deal of trouble and that started to get me down and I started to question if I had the intellectual ability to make it as a doctor. At 16 after battling it out with studying really hard and doing fairly well in chemistry and trigonometry, my hands started to shake at this time and I couldn’t control the shaking. That depressed me because I had really wanted to specialize as a surgeon, well that wasn’t happening. So I decided to concentrate on becoming a hospital administrator. That wasn’t even close as a substitute for practicing medicine.
What I wish is that I could have hung in there and if not become a doctor at least become a nurse. I always am the one who bandaged and took care of friends and family when they were hurt. I am one of the best with tweezers, quick and painless.
I think that to achieve my dream, I would have needed some support from my parents or at least a mentor. Someone cheering me on when I felt doubt about my calling or about myself. I didn’t have that at all, they weren’t the kind of parents to give compliments or encouragement. My mother was one who if you did well, that was to be expected. If you did poorly or not as well as she thought you should, there was heck to pay. I never felt safe to say “I’m feeling a little down, I’m not sure, I don’t think that I’m as smart as you thought I was”. That last one was the one that plagued me to my core. Doing well in school was such an expectation that to confess that I wasn’t up to snuff anymore, was too scary to admit to her.
All I can say is that in many ways it appears that the roll of the dice factors in our lives more often than not. Makes it interesting and it’s never too late to realize a dream or at least try to.
laurieanichols 