"Failure's
hard, but success is far more dangerous. If you're successful at the
wrong thing, the mix of praise and money and opportunity can lock you in
forever." Po Bronson
How
often do we find ourselves sacrificing and putting off our own dreams
to make others’ possible? Why must our passions remain hobbies while
others’ are dustless and well-oiled realities? These thoughts I
entertain often, for I am a dreamer. I, certainly, do not subscribe to
the group who says there are two types of people, however. These two
groups, of course, are made up of doers and dreamers. Dreamers would not
be dreamers without doers and so forth. But who’s to say where to draw
the line, that is, if one must create yet another construct,
classification, or division.
My
siding (there we go again) is that many often dream while doing and do
while dreaming. This, of course, would include the many individuals who
have “fallen into” something or feel they have otherwise “settled,” at
least that is how they feel inside—a dialogue with their repression,
angst, and denial. Self is important in this respect but not to the
extent where we are unable to step outside ourselves to consider the
reality we may, or may not, feel a part of. Many focus on asking
themselves, “What about me?” instead of promoting the search for self
and identity in questioning, “Who am I?”
In
any case, if one group was to consider the other group as, say,
“dreamers” than would that group be labeled, by default, the doers? And,
would these dreamers be considered selfish because they feel they are
more in tune with their self and identity? Are doers, then, worried
about themselves and thereby take certain paths of actions that enable
them to do instead of dream? Who knows where the sure route leads. Who’s
to say that one is correct and the other flawed.
Peering
into contemporary times with a careful perspective, I would not
necessarily assert that celebrities and media sensations have replaced
the bards, artists, and thespians of the past. Nor would I assume that
the gladiators of great Roman times are now the professional athletes of
today’s stadiums. But, if either were true, it would not be hard to see
that the doers of history were very much dreamers. They say that the
annals of history rarely record the lives and works of so-called
dreamers and those who chose to stand-by—but I wouldn’t be too sure of
that.
