What is your dream ?
Ali asked me the other night and I just couldn’t come up with an answer. So I tried to counter the question by asking why I needed to have a dream at all. His answer was straight and simple…it sustains you.

This isn’t the first time someone has asked me this question. Lord knows I ask myself this question practically every day. I believe my life was easy once, defined in its silhouette if not in essence. It had a pattern without my making much of an effort to define it. Primary school led to high school, on to college and University. Half of the time, I didn’t even decide my subjects…they were decided for me. I guess that’s where my problem lies…it was easier being told…and when and if things got out of control…I had someone to blame.

Now I stand at a point where I need to not only make a decision but have the responsibility to see it through. Ali rightly guessed that my problem is that I am in this comfort zone where even though I know I can be happier than I am now…I am too comfortable to actually do something and make my life the way I dreamt it to be.

That’s not my only problem though. Saniya said that I lack the inner strength to see myself through a lot of things. I agree. More than that…I don’t know what kind of dream is right for me. Should I pursue intangible dreams…or do I mark targets such as being able to buy a car by the end of this year.

I have had impossible dreams and somehow I know that my pursuit for a comfortable life won’t make me any happier. I am already comfortable Alhumdulilah. But how do I break this mould? How do I sever the dreams of material gain from my dream of a peaceful life?

Somehow I know that our dreams become our addiction. They can be in form of our obsession with acquiring a certain skill, a certain station in life and sometimes it manifests itself through our pursuit of a certain person. I have seen people following all three kinds of dreams and none of that is sustainable. And there comes a time in your life when you don’t remember your dreams…they’re replaced by your memories. And that is the time when regardless of your physical age…you’ve grown old.

I have reached that point!

But I want to turn back. No matter how superficial dreams can be…I still want to dream. And I want renewable dreams…I want more than just merely exist…I want to live!