People often say that having dreams is a good thing.
I am still not entirely sure why. Yet perhaps dreams give us something valuable: the joy of imagining what life could become.
People say that having dreams is a good thing.
Why it is good, I am still not entirely sure.
Dreams may become a source of energy for living, but even without dreams, we still possess the instinct to survive. In that sense, they may not be essential.
Then why are dreams considered valuable? Perhaps because there is pleasure in imagining the moment when they finally come true.
The clearest example of a dream may be a lottery ticket.
People buy the dream of sudden wealth while thinking, If I win, I’ll do this… I’ll do that.
There are dreams that can be bought in this way, but there are also dreams that cannot be bought so easily.
Those are the dreams that can only be achieved through one’s own effort.
When such dreams come true, the joy is naturally greater.
Even if they cannot be replaced by money or material things, if they are something we truly longed for, the satisfaction of achieving them must be immense.
In that sense, perhaps people are more likely to feel fulfilled when they always carry some dream within them.
If we begin defining satisfaction itself, we may never finish, so I will leave that for another time. Still, having dreams seems to make people feel considerably happier.
And age has nothing to do with it.
As long as we stand somewhere on the single number line called time, for human beings and all things alike, this very moment is the starting line.
Young people may dream because they have many years ahead of them. But older people may dream about the years that remain as well.
As for me, I still have dreams of completing things left unfinished in the rest of my life.
Each of them, for me, is steeper than it may appear.
Without losing focus, I want to achieve them one by one.
And when they are done, I hope to dream again and continue walking through life.
As long as life continues, there is always room for another dream.
・・・
Vocabulary for Learners
- dreams come true = 夢がかなう
- instinct to survive = 生存本能
- source of energy = 活力の源
- sudden wealth = 一攫千金
- through one’s own effort = 自らの努力によって
- longed for = 切望していた、憧れていた
- fulfilled = 満たされた
- starting line = スタートライン
- years that remain = 残された年月
- unfinished = 未完了の、やり残した
- one by one = 一つ一つ
- continue walking through life = 人生を歩み続ける
