I am a fan of Randy Pausch.
If you have been reading my blog for some time, you will notice that from time to time I will quote on his wisdom. I have watched and rewatched his last lecture “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams“. I have read and reread his book of the same title.
I never knew him. Nor ever will. He died of pancreatic cancer a couple of years ago but hearing him speaking on the public lecture makes me feel that I’ve known the guy. He was funny and had a good sense of humour. And his lessons were spot-on.
If I only have one life, I want to be remembered like he does: to have led life the right way, and to have achieved my utmost dreams.
Chase your dreams by Ignacio Palomo Duarte
I’ve given this much more thought today.
Often when facing the reality, coupled with the pressure of pursuing the world’s definition of success, we forget and lose track of who we really are, what we want to achieve, what our priorities are, and ultimately, how do we want our lives to be remembered by others.
Legacy is a strong word, but everyone wants to have one.
The question is, are we spending our time on the right things? Because time is all you have and sometimes you have less than you think.
It’s like, you get more distracted. You have tons of responsibilities to sort out before you start to be on the path of achieving your dreams. You want to play safe. You don’t want to get out of your comfort zone because the outside world is scary and it may set you up for failure.
I know, I sure am distracted.
I have been starting my career, holding a job. In time, I blog less and less, saving those precious spare time to relaxing, sleeping, and watching TV – which have become such luxuries, really.
Simply put, I write less.
I haven’t pitched an article to any publication for ten months. Ten months!
I settle for lazy writing and literally write things that I want to write when I want to write them.
I don’t take trips to the local cafe with a book and my iPad anymore.
I reminisce about the good old days, which sadly, just exist in my head.
I make statements like, “I’ll start on my dream again when I have the time,” or when I’ve settled, or more prepared, or when I am done with this thing which consumes so much of my life, which I know are just other ways of saying never.
Here’s the thing: like many gen Y-ers out there who just had reality slap of the thing called working-from-nine-to-five, I haven’t been getting out of bed with excitement every single day. I agonise the fact that I need to wake up early, that I need to literally be out of bed in the next four minutes and 47 seconds if I don’t want to be late for work today.
I complain about my lack of sleep. I settle for the thinking that I have a low energy bar level, and that qualifies me for not doing anything.
Long gone are the days of jumping out of bed, eager to venture the new cafe in town, armed with a thousand ideas to write about while getting my much needed caffeine fix. Gone are the times where I am so excited to talk about my dreams and what I want to become and what I’m actually doing to get there.
Today, I feel like I’m just another boring behind-the-desk chick who works nine-to-five who only has boring stories to tell.
I want to recapture that passion again. I want to experience that adrenaline rush when I type frantically on my keyboard, trying to catalog every word in my brain before my poor memory breaks down.
I want to create.
And once again, I want to be actually doing something to pursue my dream.
