Without meaning to sound cliché...

What happens to our dreams? Or, how do people lose sight of dreams?

I remember in the past few years, when all my weekends were occupied by lectures and classes and study sessions, I would often stop and promise myself that once the exams were over, I would take some time to develop myself and do things that I actually would enjoy doing. I dreamed of learning to swim, taking classes in fashion, learning to play a musical instrument, e.t.c.
I had the names and addresses of the institutes and people that I would take the lectures from, just as soon as the exams were done with.

Now, seven months after receiving the results of my final exams, I am still who I was while writing the exams. No knowledge of any instruments, no knowledge of a new language, perhaps a worse fashion sense, no published works (or unpublished for that matter), basically nothing new! If anything, I may even be worse off because I now spend time watching tv, getting fat, and doing irrelevant things for which I never had the time while I was studying for exams. Some days I feel like my brain is gradually slipping into a rut for lack of so much use!

Okay, back to my point. Wherever did all those fantastic dreams go?

Once, I was going through my mailbox and I came across this article that had been written by a friend a long time ago. He had promised us, his readers that we would read part two of the article “soon”. So I sent him an email: “did you ever write part two?” he replied, “No. I have too much to do. I haven’t accomplished any of the things I set out to accomplish”.
That’s when I started to think of my own dreams of long (seven months) ago, and I began to wonder, “what on earth happened to those dreams?”

If we all had a moment to reflect, I believe we would come up with several dreams and plans and aspirations that somehow got shelved along the line.
What causes dreams to be shelved? What happens to them when they are shelved? Do they grow old and die a sad death? Do they fly off into the wind and enter someone else’s mind to be brought to fruition? Or do they remain somewhere in our minds, waiting, hoping, and praying (can dreams pray?) that one day, their originator arises and decides to act on them?

I would gladly pick the option that they fly off into someone else’s mind somewhere to be brought to life. But as soon as I begin to dwell on the idea, I am reminded that not all dreams / plans are happy and beneficial.
For instance, I dream and plan so much on how to inflict pain on a certain person. To somehow cause him grievous bodily harm (I like that phrase “grievous bodily harm). Now that is one dream I haven acted upon (yet). Let us assume that his mother’s prayers are strong enough to prevent me from actually fulfilling that particular dream, and the theory of dreams flying away is true, then it means, inevitably, that someday somewhere, someone is bound to do him grievous bodily harm (there, that nice phrase again).
It then naturally means that a lot of bad, inexplicable things would be happening to people everyday, based on naughty, flyway dreams!.

Have I digressed from the very serious and philosophical topic I started out with? Pardon me. I’m not about to lose this dream so fast though, so back to dreams…

People lose dreams for various reasons: perhaps the dreams were not realistic in the first place (like Mr. Frog dreaming of singing soprano), or the dreamer lacked the will to see it through, or their wicked stepmother intervened and locked up the dream (conspiracy theory).

In any case, I believe where there is a will, there is a way, and if you can think it, then you can do it!

As long as you don't lose sight of it...