Quote of the week #6

Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning.

Gloria Steinem

 

Today, I happened to listen to a song that always reminds me of hope for the future. It was played during our official graduation from school. We had to walk on a red carpet, me and my two best friends together and afterwards we were given our certificates. During that walk the song was played. I remember exactly how I felt that day. We were exceedingly happy to have passed our final exams with good grades. It was our last day as pupils and it felt like our whole future lay ahead of us. After 12 years of school, it was the threshold to a new life. We had so many dreams and hopes. In that moment, we felt as if we could reach anything, as if we could change the world. I know that it was totally exaggerated and unrealistic and it might even seem stupid, but this is what we felt, or it was what I felt. Of course, there is nothing much extraordinary about graduating from school, but for us it was the way to our future, it was like a magic moment. Whenever I listen to that song, it reminds me of that hopeful, exciting feeling and I begin to believe that there is still a lot I can accomplish. It makes me remember my dreams and hopes.

Is it of any good to have dreams? Is it starry-eyed, naïve? Would it be better to not dream at all, to be more realistic?

Is dreaming a way to define and achieve our goals or does it prevent us from living our life?

In my opinion, it is good to have dreams and, as in the quote, it is even a form of planning.
Even if they never come true, at least they give us hope for the future, they make the present a better place. They make us hope for a better future and in some cases they make us do something for this future. Most of the time I am down-to-earth, but in my heart I will never stop having some of those dreams. In my opinion, we should have dreams that are not too unrealistic and then we should try and make these dreams come true.

Do you still have dreams? Did some of your dreams come true when you grew older? Or did you give up your dreams?
Do we change when we grow older? Do we see things in a more realistic way, do our views change?

Well, I think I am still young and I don’t know whether my point of view will change when I am older. Anyway, I don’t feel like that all of the time. There are a lot of days I feel completely different, but I am grateful for those hopeful days.

Quote of the week #4

We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.

Joseph Campbell

 

One of my biggest weaknesses is probably that I am a really bad organizer and planner, at least when it comes to my own life. When I ought to do something for others, it is very important for me to be reliable, but when I should plan something in my own life, I tend to be a bit chaotic and spontaneous. As I have explained in some earlier post, I never watch the weather forecasts and just go outside to see how the weather is. That is basically the way I have handled a lot of things in my life. During the last year in particular, a lot of things have changed in my life, I have developed personally and I started making some plans in my life though.

I have noticed that most people feel comfortable in planning everything and that a lot of people don’t like changes of plans. I do understand the reasons for it and I can also see the advantages of planning.

But I still wonder if it is better to schedule every detail in our lives or to take things as they come.

I think one has to distinguish here between things that should be planned and things that we have no influence on.

As I have mentioned before, I used to plan hardly anything, although I have always waited for the future to come, so that I could move away and start my own life. This might seem contradictory, but as I always just had this big plan, I didn’t plan the details that came before.
Nevertheless, I have learned that you should have some plans in your life and that it is nearly impossible to continue with such an attitude that I had, once you are a grown up and once you are fully responsible for your life.

But is it really necessary to plan every detail and most important, is it possible? In my opinion, it absolutely isn’t.

At first, there are things like preparing for a test, for example an exam at university. Obviously, you should know how much time it takes to learn the different topics and then try to learn it continuously and not keep it all for the last day, so scheduling here is necessary.

Secondly, there are the big plans in life. Admittedly, I have to say that I still don’t have concrete plans here. I rather like to see it as options you have in life and ways you would like to continue. For example, I would like to have my own little family one day, but can I really be sure that I will ever find the partner for this? It is also my dream to visit as many places of this world as possible. Furthermore, I want to graduate from university and find a job that I like. But I have no idea about the details yet.

You always have to keep in mind that there is no way of foreseeing the future and things usually don’t turn out as we have expected them to do, so these are rather not my plans but some of my aims in life. At the same time, I can see that it is important to know your options and to have some plans in mind, so that you can try to reach the best possible outcome. Moreover, a good organization is often necessary and helpful to reach your goals.

Besides, it is a great and important thing to have some visions and dreams in life.

So we should have some plans for the important big things in life, but we also have to consider changes and developments, so that we can modify our plans and the way we could reach our goals.

But still I see no point in planning every detail of my life. You can’t plan the little things you have no influence on. There are so much wonderful things to explore every day and I like to keep all options open.
In fact, starting this blog was a very spontaneous decision and when the idea arose in my mind I immediately implemented it. Of course, some planning would have been useful. But on the other hand, without being spontaneous I would never have had this idea.

This is just my personal point of view and I am aware of its great imperfectness. However, as my journey just began, I am sure there will be more development.

Finally, this whole text didn’t completely refer to the quote. But I think it speaks for itself.