That’s right, you’re under eighteen. How dare you think you can dream? You’re a kid; you don’t know what you’re talking about. You are living in a complete dream world mate. Just stick to what everyone else is doing, stick to education. Take everything in life as it comes. Don’t try and grab opportunities. Opportunities will be set out for you as they should come. YOU ARE TOO YOUNG TO DREAM.

A number of times in the past few weeks, I’ve found myself in conversations with people about what we think will come of our futures, how soon it will come, how we intend to do these things and what we’re doing now to make these things a reality. These conversations got me thinking about a few things that I’m personally quite conscious about; do we as young people dream far beyond the confinements of our age? I mean, I know a lot of people are trying to make something of themselves, whether it is through the traditional route of education and going into full-time work and others are going down the less-conventional route of using their initiative to create something from nothing.

My hypothesis is that you can never be too young to start making something of yourself. The quicker you start, the more mistakes you can make to learn from and the more errors you can cancel out, increasing the chances of success. However, in society today it just seems that everybody wants to extinguish the flames of ambition in the youth but there are other things which do need to be considered with the concept of dreaming…

Definition

I looked for a definition of the word ‘dream’ and here was the one that I liked the most, which I felt best suited the concept which I’m trying to explore:

Dream – a state of mind characterized by abstraction and release from reality.

So, essentially this definition when used in the context of the topic at hand is basically saying that dreaming is thinking outside of the box of what should not be…but we have the belief within us that we are able to turn that thinking into something of substance and existence. And rightly so! We live in an age where even the sky can no longer be called a limitation.

Don’t hate, Help

Many people knock young people’s dreams, full of pessimism and negativity, questioning whether these dreams have a realistic nature. I however, perceive this as jealousy. Many people do not dare to test social norms; many are unfortunately conformists. The conformists talk and act with envy (whether it is conscious or subconscious) because they wish they could have done what these young people were doing at their age and realise how much time they’ve wasted themselves. But why must they convey this with jealousy? Why can’t they motivate those to do what they did not realise they should have done themselves? Personally, I know that in life I always encourage people to not make the same mistakes as myself, but to learn from the things that I wasn’t intelligent enough to do (or not do) at their age.

As it is, many of today’s youth are already lacking confidence due to a lack of support and concern in what they do, in addition to the way the media depicts them. Opportunities are few for them and those that exist, many of them are blind to due to not being very well-informed. But us as people who may have recently lived what they are living, why can’t we all try to help the youth and help them realise their full potential?

If we look through history, there are many people who have started young and have become incredibly successful. Bill Gates started fiddling with computers at the age of thirteen, Michael Jackson dabbed his fingers in music at the age of five. There is nothing wrong with dreaming young. Infact, the previously mentioned examples show that dreaming young is the way to success.

Don’t ever let anyone tell you you’re too young to dream. Age is nothing but a number and what we get done in this number of years is our choice; it is not the choice of our years what we get done. Keep striving people. Keep striving to be the best. The quicker the better. Many will envy our ambition, but it is up to us to look past this and continue to do what we know we are fully capable of achieving. Barriers only exist to those who believe they are unsurpassable.

E.T (Expressionable Thought)

“If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavours to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.”

~ Henry David Thoreau

Aspire

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