Times Of Swaziland: IF YOU CAN DREAM IT, YOU CAN DO IT

IF YOU CAN DREAM IT, YOU CAN DO IT
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Bongani Smelane on 30/11/2024 07:07:00


To me, this means pretty much what it says. Now like most simple quotes,
there’s a lot more going on. But on the surface, it’s pretty straight
forward. The first part, “If you can dream it,” to me says “If you can put
the thoughts that make up a thing together in your head,”. The second part,
“you can do it.” to me says “you can make that thought a reality.” So,
to me, this statement is about dreaming great and beautiful things, and making
them so powerful in your head that you simply must make them come to life. Once
you have a sufficiently big reason why something must be done, the actual doing
simply becomes a numbers game. Ask often enough for help, assistance, and
support and share a compelling dream, then you will eventually make it happen.
But first comes the dream.
Now when the term ‘dream’ is used, some people think of a flight of fancy,
while others see a beautiful and compelling future that they can attain. Which
one did Dr Martin Luther King Jr. share with us in his famous speech? While to
some, it may have been the former, too many of us (both then and now) it is the
latter. While we are closer to that dream, we are not yet there. But we get
closer and closer all the time. For the purposes of this article, we will define
a dream as a vision of a compelling future, which provides inspiration and
motivation for the dreamer. The last two bits, inspiration and motivation, they
are important. Without those, the dream will die when confronted by the
realities involved in making it happen.
Great lengths of time, Herculean efforts, late nights, early mornings, massive
efforts (which only gain you another failure, again and again), these are all
part of the price you will pay, if you are to make your dream a reality. And
that’s where the inspiration and motivation come in, they keep the fires
burning when the world tries to pour cold water over you and your dream.
How many of you ever saw a TV show like the Jetsons and wondered where are the
flying cars? How about Star Trek and the transporters or food replicators? While
those inventions still are compelling, they are also still in the future.
However, robotic floor cleaners exist (our kids named ours “Rosie,” after
the Jetson’s maid-bot), and you can’t walk by a gym without seeing the
treadmills made famous by George taking Astro out for a walk. If you prefer Star
Trek, compare the old-style communicators with flip phones, or the newer
chest/badge communicators with a Bluetooth headset and you’ll see that some
dreams can be done. While satellite phones are a bit bulky today, so were cell
phones from the 1980’s.
Then there is all the medical equipment from Star Trek, scanners and diagnostic
equipment that boggle the mind, when you look at the actual operating principles
and the science involved. More dreams from both shows are becoming reality with
every passing day. Do you have a dream, a thought or an idea that keeps you up
at night? Perhaps you had one when you were younger, but have set it aside
because now you were a “grown up”? Dr. Seuss was a grown up too. The people
who make Lego are grown up as well. Don’t let your age stop you from having,
and working on, your dream. Perhaps you have to modify it, I still would love to
play football in the NFL, but my body isn’t capable of that level of effort
anymore. But there are other things I can do. How about you? Have you thought of
any dreams, either present ones, or ones from your past?
The next step, once you have a dream, is to make it compelling. What would the
realization of the dream, or even a portion of it, mean to you, your family,
your friends, or even the rest of humanity? The more compelling the dream, the
easier it is to go through the inevitable low spots. You can start small, and
work on a portion of the dream, or start locally, instead of going global in a
single push. Expect setbacks; expect to use PlanB or PlanC at some point. Expect
to be knocked down. Plan to get back up again and again. That’s just how life
goes.
But if you can keep your dream alive, you can, with careful observation of
feedback and some creative thinking, achieve some portion of your dream. Just be
sure you never run out of dreams. No matter what you accomplish, you can always
do more. And someone out there is counting on you. What makes a difference
between myself and the next person is that I sleep, dream and wake up to put my
dreams into action when others sleep, dream, dream and dream until they depart
from planet earth hence the most fertile and intellectually organic place is the
cemetery where a lot of people were buried with their music still playing within
them.Dont make up those numbers then, you can do it and do it better, you just
need to be pro-active.