Between Failure and Poverty of Dreams

That we may dream and dare

In 1997, I was on a trip to Scotland for the first time. I was there for company training. While there, I had to go on a long distance outdoor trek with my course mate from the Netherlands. (Yes, I still remember his full name).

On the day of our outing, we stopped first at Montrose City Information Centre, where we collected folded maps of the countryside. Armed with these, we started our outdoor exploration. Trekking the countryside for several hours, we even dipped our feet in the sea along coast of the North Sea.

Through expanses of open grassland, sights of mechanized harvesters and packaging of Irish potato crops from sprawling acres of farmland, everything was new to me then. Barns of barley and other cereals interspersed the open meadows. The air was heavy with mash fermenting to prepare for their famous Scottish whiskey brews.

At the end of that day, we got back “home” with worn out limbs and sore feet. I have never been on such an outing until then. But it was fulfilling and uplifting experience. It was my first trip outside my country.

In 1998, two young men, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, came up with a company built on searching for information in the digital universe. The company they birthed, Google, came along with many revolutionary ideas hitherto unthought of.

Thanks to this global behemoth, we no longer need any physical map to travel the world or take an excursion. At its start, the idea of maps of the entire planet in a pocket device seemed dauntingly impossible. But thanks to their audacious foresight and lofty dreams, what used to be the stock of science fiction has become real and even mundane — all before our eyes.

True, GPS navigation has existed before then. But it was Google Maps on ever cheap Android and other smartphones that contributed largely towards making this former niche technology a “must-have” mainstream carry on and indispensable item.

Today, all it takes to get from nowhere to anywhere is a GPS enabled smartphone and Google Maps app. Not only has the detailed atlas of the world been crunched into your pocket, the possibilities and accompanying opportunities are endlessly expanding.

The founders of Google started with the idea of making the vast store of the ever-expanding universe of digital information on the web within easy reach and useful to everybody. The entire world is gratefully better off because of dreamers like them.

The point I am making here is that through their dreams, they created a world bristling with opportunities. A world where all or more of us can succeed if we only we dare to dream and pursue our own bigger dreams.

It all started with a dream

Those two renowned founders pulled this marvel off within a relatively short time. They made their feat possible because their dreams and the possibilities that came out of them were way out of this world. So speaking.

It’s very hard to fail completely if you aim high enough.

— Larry Page

The social media is one of the many beneficial outcrops and amplifier of the deluge of pros and cons that follow. Compulsorily, we are more than ever awash with messages that predispose us to discontentment, immediate gratification and idleness. These irresistible trio of allures ultimately lead many to lives of zero or under achievement despite the daily cumulative increase in emerging opportunities.

The ultimate tragedy in life is not that you tried and failed. Passing through life having no dream — poverty of dreams is the ultimate poverty.

When you give up personal responsibility, others take charge of your life in ways more often than not detrimental to your wellbeing.

Show me your dreams

Are you dreaming mean or insignificant dreams? Will your dreams impact lives and change our world for the better?

Here are the hints

When poverty of dreams afflict any person, here are the signs you see;

• Such people underrate their potential value and self-worth.
• They set their sights “too-high” on the target, while neglecting the rough, long and gritty process that marks the journey of the successful ones they admire.
• They forget what they set out to achieve at the beginning.
• Lured on by technology, they surrender to a life of mass distraction.
• Procrastination as trademark: Always putting off what they can and ought to do right now.

Ever at-hand payday

• Underperformance: Idleness invariably leads to poverty of dreams, ultimately ending in a life of underperformance and arrested development of latent abilities.
• Missed Opportunities: Things may be tough for a diligent person, but that is going to be temporary. An idle person, poor in dreams is completely hopeless because he can never see when good comes his way.
• Negative fallout from giving up personal responsibility: There are many of life’s challenges we cannot solve solely through our own efforts. Equally, there are many challenges we can handle without the help of other people. When we refuse to solve problems that we can and ought to solve on our own, we invariably develop a mindset that always shifts responsibility to external forces or individuals as being the determinants of all that happens. This attitude destroys individual personal responsibility. When you give up personal responsibility, others take charge of your life in ways more often than not detrimental to your well being.

Our problem is not that we aim too high and miss, but that we aim too low and hit.

— Aristotle

The cure — only for the willing

The best time to get an umbrella is before it rains. If you wait until it rains before you search for an umbrella, then you are already too late. It is never too late to do something good or head toward your dreams — becoming the person you ought to be.

• Realize that, without self-discipline, purpose and diligence, everybody tends towards a life of ease, idleness, laziness and endless amusement.
• Stop talking and start doing. Do not be all talk and no action. Think ahead, see ahead, plan ahead. All the far away tomorrows always arrive earlier than we expected.
• Laziness and idleness are learned habits. In like manner, you can learn the habit of positive enthusiasm and drive.
• Yes, sleep is restorative and vital for our health and well-being, but don’t make yourself a slave to habitual excessive sleep.
• Consider the many lives you stand the chance to positively influence because of your diligence and handwork. This should prompt you to always act in love for the benefit of your family, the community, and the world at large.

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) 26th President of the United States of America

Final Thoughts

• Do not let your potentials for achievement be cut shot due to your poverty of dreams and self-imposed limitations.
• The ultimate tragedy in life is not that you tried and failed. The ultimate tragedy is to lead a life characterized by poverty of dreams.
• Not quitting does not mean that you will insist on continuously hitting the same dead end. What it means is that you keep on trying all options and alternatives if need be until you hit your goal.
• Idleness and laziness from time wasting abuse of the social media result in poverty of dreams that render one blind to the sea of opportunities and plenty around. Step up and step out.