Some believe that in order for us
to achieve, we must take action, whereas others believe that in order to
achieve, we must dream. Both of these
beliefs forget to acknowledge the other. How can we take action without a
dream? Do we simply run blindly in one
direction? And how can we possibly
achieve only by dreaming and no action? “To accomplish great things, we must
not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.”
Right now is graduating
season. Ecstatic graduating college and
high school students are cheering and celebrating their achievements over the
past years whether the past few years have been 4 years or 30 years. Gasps of relief and accomplishment overwhelm
the students as they reminisce and see all they have gained and grew over their
years. How did get recognized to graduate: by dreaming? Everyone starts with
just a dream, but it is what we do with that dream that defines us. Should we take action to make that dream
attainable one step at a time, or should we leave a dream in the dream world-untouched?
Along with graduating with the bare
minimum requirements, there are those who graduate with honors and with more
recognition than the ones who barely scraped by. Usually the ones who graduate as-let’s say
for example- valedictorian have memories of all the sleepless nights to study
for their biology test or to finish that extended essay and last of college
applications, all their days of sitting in class trying their best to learn as
other students are enjoying their 5 elective schedule, all their stress to be in the top of their class
with A’s or B’s as others are contented with C’s or even D’s, all their hours
of volunteering, joining clubs, and
helping others… and they see their reward for everything they did over their years
to strive to be the best they can be. And
for those who don’t want to be the best student and want to be an artist, and
writer, and musician; why practice music or drawing for hours, why write, why
work? For all their lives, there is always a doubt of “Why am I doing so much
when I can just do the bare minimum? Why put myself through all this?” and it
is in the end when they see their efforts turned into rewards.
Every year, around the middle of
second semester, my calculus and geo/trig teacher makes her class write our
goals and aspirations on an arrow-shaped sticky note and puts them all in the
wall east of the classroom to remind us of our purpose for working as we do. Although we may feel like quitting and
feeling like there’s no point of our efforts, we must push through and stay
strong for ourselves. These are our dreams
and goals; we must work to make them come true.
Dream on Unusual Asian! Thanks, I think this pick me up motivator is exactly what juniors need before entering their last summer of high school :) it serves perfectly to keep us moving; to make sure we finish those god awful packets of summer assignments while also researching the colleges we wish to attend to fulfill our dreams. We've come too far to drop the ball so close to the finish! I agree that we need both dreams and action to be successful; dreams are the inspiration for action, the fuel for the car to get from point A to point B. Plus life without a dream is just boring :p
ReplyDeleteThis is a great quote! It reminds me of a quote that about always doing your best and the hard work will pay off later. We should always keep reaching for a better goal and not give up. We need to act on our dreams so they can become our reality.
ReplyDeleteI love your quote it's very inspirational. What I like most is that you talk about how great it is to have a dream but in order to fufill the dream we can't just solely belive but we must work at it to obtain that dream. I think many people need to be constantly reminded that dreaming doesn't necessarily need to be idealistic bad thing; it's just something that drives us to work harder. A wonderful post Kayla:))
ReplyDeleteI enjoy how you related this quote to school, and our activity in math class. Sometimes we really need a reminder that we're putting ourselves through so much work now so that we may enjoy a better future.
ReplyDeleteI see what you mean, that to act on something you must first have an idea of what to act on but what if you had to pick only one? What would you do then? Dream or act? I would imagine that you would be a dreamer but what would you get done? You might say that I would act but what would I act upon? Truth is you can't have one without the other and quite frankly acting upon a belief is a lot harder than simply believing.
ReplyDelete