What's your dream?

Well, what is it?

You mean the one with the scissors and the giant carrots, only they’re really not carrots, they’re…

Oh, THAT kind of dream?

to some day become a super saiyan

…Uhh, let’s see. My most evident is a dream of going to various anime universes, and then coming back with godly powers right before completely annihilating the UN and taking over the world.

Then I have one about going back to an old school after it’s abandoned(first conscious dream ever, I had it when I was 4).

And finally a one about crushing a bunch of bugs in a plastic shopping bag with a hammer. :smiley:

Nah, I’m talking about your real life dream, if you have one. I was thinking about my on total lack of ambition, and wondering if other people were the same, or if some were burning with the fire etc.

Sex with Nicole Kidman, world peace, and vanilla ice cream with A&W poured on top.

A root beer float?

To teach.

Next time you want a serious discussion better write a longer initial post to set the tone :wink: Anyway, let ramza become a super saiyan and I’ll get the gin.

Good advice :wink:

Not everyone needs a dream. Most people don’t end up doing anything spectacular with their lives. If you aim too high you might never get off the ground. I don’t really have a dream; I just keep on doing what I’m doing. I think the best dream one could hope for is to have a job you enjoy, a spouse/partner who you complement and get along well with, and (if it’s in your realm of thinking) children you are proud of.

—Sin—

I want my molecule to make me rich so I can retire on the coast of Southern California and not have to interact with the world ever again. Other than that I just want to survive my program and get my degrees.

You know Cid, I agree completely. Its funny, because I think one of the biggest problems with our generation - “Generation Y” - is that each and every person thinks that they’re destined to ‘change the world’.

This is a good article:

Many young men and women in Generation Y were raised to believe that they can (and should) be able to do anything they wish, fulfill their dreams, and only accept the best that life has to offer. They are told that they can dare to be great, to shine their light, to aim for success and to DREAM BIG!

Many of us baby boomers who are their parents may agree. After all, we want the best for them.
The problem is, not everyone becomes the team captain, valedictorian, science fair blue ribbon, or Most Popular. In the real world our gift may remain hidden for years, and even those with great strengths also have blind-spots and weaknesses.

The problem with high expectations is that when those young people accustomed to instant (or at least prompt) support and satisfaction collide with job-seeking in a world of non-relatives, they may not find their dream-castle in the sky on their first outing.
My solution? Dream small!

Those with small, modest dreams are more likely to achieve them. In the arena of romance, shift your vision from Prince Charming (or the head cheerleader) to a nice, caring person — and from a castle to an affordable apartment (and someday perhaps a home).

You don’t need to become a Consultant and get rich right out of the gate. You just need enough to live on as you explore your talents and life’s options.

Until you find a career, get a job. And with it, some breathing space. Starving artists may view themselves as tragic romantics, but they’re still starving. So get a day job while your creative aspirations continue to mature.

And who knows — maybe those small dreams, more easily fulfilled, will lead, over time, to bigger dreams. Meantime, instead of striving for extraordinary, experience the joy of being ordinary.

It’s okay to just fit in until you find out where you stand out.

In the process, you may discover that what’s really important isn’t what you thought it might be. That the hopes and promises and big dreams and grandiose schemes to Arrive and to Make It and to be Somebody aren’t really what life’s about.

Enjoy the small dreams, the simple pleasures, the everyday moments.

—Sin—

You CAN accomplish anything you set your mind to and I’m living proof of that. Its just that the vast majority of people are not strong enough to follow up with the required sacrifices. You are WRONG to believe that you can’t accomplish what you want (except maybe really big extremes like winning the Olympics). What needs to be discussed is that people have a sense of ENTITLEMENT and don’t want to have to work to get these things. The going gets tough, people give up or tell themselves they can’t do it and then it all comes crashing down and they feel betrayed by the world because of their own inadequacy. GG.

Well, I have two real dreams, one is attainable(for me) and the other is the extraordinary one.

First, I want to graduate with high scores in the SATs(hopefully 600+ in each), attend college(majoring in Pre-med) and then Medical School and finally become a Medical Doctor(or Surgeon).

Second, I want to either A)Cause WWIII or B)Discover a way to create a somewhat safe Anti-Matter/Matter engine. =D

Those are my dreams.

Oh, and the dream of “Having an enjoyable job, good spouse and (possibly) children” is pretty close to the American Dream, just add house in there. =D

You CAN accomplish anything you set your mind to and I’m living proof of that. Its just that the vast majority of people are not strong enough to follow up with the required sacrifices. You are WRONG to believe that you can’t accomplish what you want (except maybe really big extremes like winning the Olympics). What needs to be discussed is that people have a sense of ENTITLEMENT and don’t want to have to work to get these things. The going gets tough, people give up or tell themselves they can’t do it and then it all comes crashing down and they feel betrayed by the world because of their own inadequacy. GG.]

But let me ask you this: do you think anyone can develop a strong will? I don’t… not from what I"ve seen. It seems like personality defects prevent what you describe taking place…

—Sin—

Confidence isn’t something that magically happens. Its something that you develop over time. Hiding behind a is pathetic. If you’re in a wheel chair and you can’t walk, that shouldn’t stop you from trying to become something like a doctor or a lawyer, or work in the video games industry or whatever. Its not because you start at a disadvantage that you can’t do great things. Giving up is a choice you make. Any choice boils down to whether you do something or you don’t. When you fail, you try again. If you don’t, its not because you can’t but because you don’t want to. Success is never given to anyone.

You shouldn’t say that its wrong to tell kids growing up that they can accomplish anything because you yourself are incapable of crossing your own psychological obstacles. When you do this, you apply your problem to their lives, which is irrelevant and inapplicable. You just don’t want to believe that they could do something which you can’t because you gave up.

The one problem with believing that you can accomplish whatever you want to is that, no matter how true your belief may be, most of the rest of the world will be only too quick to disagree with you. It gets even worse if you actually need someone else’s help in order to accomplish a goal- to put it bluntly (but accurately) you what what the scientific community describes as ‘well fucked’.

My own dream is to get my novel published (preferably the entire series but I’ll settle with 1 to start with) and (worst case scenario replace that ‘and’ with ‘or’) be able to make a living out of doing something I truly enjoy and live a life without stress.

My problem is making decisions. I really do believe that I can accomplish most thiings, ironically because of my obsessive personality(which screws me over in other areas of life), but I don’t know what to focus it on. I’m sure that’s probably most people’s problem.

—Sin—

1-I edited my previous post a bit.

2-Neb: People will always want to stop you if you succeed where they don’t. Its human nature for people to be jealous of people that have what they don’t. This is a reflection of the weakness and insecurity of these individuals. In life, if you really want to push things forward, you have to learn to play politics because a lot of times its who you know , not just what you know.

3-You’re right that most people are indecisive. But I think the reality is that when you don’t make a decision , you end up not doing anything and so you indirectly accept not doing something. Therefore I disagree that the root of the problem is that people are indecisive, but I repeat that people have a sense of entitlement. Any choice becomes easy if it has no costs. When the issue of cost appears, you reach a problem: the person has to do what they think they believe in but has a greater short term cost or they refuse to accept to pay this short term cost and forgo long term gain.

Therefore we get back to the point of dreams. Dreams are an ideal that people want to reach but since these things have a high cost of acquiring, people end up refusing to pay their dues and they up not getting what they want and thinking its the world’s fault for not giving it to them (ie entitlement).

You certainly have a way about, Sinistral :slight_smile: But seriously, who says that I’ve given up?

—Sin—

I’m using the term “you” in general , I’m not pointing to specific problems, but sticking to concepts. If you are indeed trying to say that people shouldn’t try to reach for their dreams, then my point holds; if you honestly believed in yourself and your ability to push forward, then you wouldn’t tell others that its not for everyone.

There is nothing wrong with small objectives, but that shouldn’t influence reaching for or rule out keeping an eye on the bigger picture.

In truth, wanting to believe some people had inheretnly stronger will and most people have inherently weak will was insecurity
on my part. I like to think the competition are push-overs, cause I feel threatened a lot. I just sort of had a knee-jerk reaction the way you said it. But this is why I have conversations like this, to sift through my own mind and filter out the bullshit.

Get really good at Magic The Gathering and beat Johnny Finkle in a limited tourney.

Oh, and get a good family and home and job and all that. Preferably a family that doesn’t mind being antisocial.

Edit: And people can develop confidence. Lord knows I have.

I have a few issues with what Sin says. The first is that no, it isn’t true that anyone can accomplish anything. If you’re in a wheelchair, maybe yes, you can become a lawyer; but you won’t be winning any foot races. If your brain isn’t wired to be good at math, you aren’t going to be a mathematician, and if you suck at hockey you aren’t going to make it into the majors. You might make a halfway decent mathematician with an insane amount of work, or a mediocre hockey player, but you’ll never be a great one.

The problem comes when kids decide they want to be X, even if they have little or no aptitude for it, and parents encourage them along that course. At some point reality has to peek in. An early truth can be hard, but not as hard as when that truth rears its head after ten years of hard work. People have to be honest about what they are capable of doing.

Another issue is the simple idea of risk. Is it the mark of courage to be willing to risk tens of years and tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars on a dream? I’d argue it isn’t; it can be a mark of extreme foolhardiness. We’re spoon-fed Hollywood movies where the plucky good guy always gets his dream, but such things are incredibly unrealistic.

Sin is right in that some dreams can be associated with a cost (such as being a doctor; do the years in medical school, and you’re practically guaranteed to have a practice when you’re done). Work hard enough, and you don’t need to be a genius to do that. But how many dreams can really be associated with such a guaranteed outcome?

Another, related issue is that of luck. If someone has a dream of being a big actor, for example, or a big writer, the way to get there often has nothing whatsoever to do with talent and everything to do with luck and connections. There are thousands of beautiful/handsome, talented actors out there who are never discovered and never appreciated simply because there’s only so much room at the top. Practically every modern author has had their work rejected dozens of times only to strike the eye of a particular publisher and end up a bestseller. Saying that putting in enough work would automatically win you your dream simply isn’t true.

----Sin----

I refer you to my caveat on extreme examples. If you have Duchesne’s muscular dystrophy, you’re fucked and will probably die before 20. However, you are not representative of the norm and therefore are not applicable to this discussion.

You don’t need to risk ten years or thousands of dollars when taking risks. If you jump in blindly into things like that, you deserve to fail. I didn’t get where I am now by taking blind risks. You have to calculate your chances and work things in your favor. This takes work.

Med school is a great example because the vast majority of things boil down to sitting your ass down and getting the work done. The people that get into med school are not normal people. Most have some kind of obsessive compulsive disorder that enables them to do the kind of work that allows to get into and succeed in med school. This kind of dedication is something they weren’t born with. Its something that they developed over 10 years of doing high school and undergrad and overachieving. Along the way, they had sleepless nights, destroyed relationships, social connectivity problems, etc etc. But they knew what had to be done and the ones who got in, got in because they stuck to it.

Making connections requires time, patience and skill. Is there a luck component? Yes. But you can’t blame it all on bad luck. On the author bit, publish research is like that too. Its a great example that illustrates my point because its all about persevering until you can get it published.

You’re right to say that putting in the work will not necessarily mean you’ll get what you want out of it. However, if you don’t try, who is to say that you wouldn’t have if you did? You lose all right to discuss why you can’t have something if you didn’t try everything that you could to get it.

Indeed.

I think you being able to accomplish anything you want and someone else being able to are completely different things; you aren’t “proof”. You’re an example that a specific goal is in reach for a specific individual. I don’t think that really warrants a “GG”. There are people who, in no slight to you, have made far more numerous and sizable sacrifices towards their goal without ever achieving it or even coming close.
I don’t disagree that much with your point, since I do think people should try things, but actually be willing to sacrifice something for them, just the way you’re sort of making yourself into this Nietzschian strong man who goes out and gets his dreams, damn it; anyone who has ever failed, for the most part without regard for extenuating circumsances, is a weak and wholly inadequate person; anyone who disagrees with you, also, is simply jealous. It just seems you’re defending a somewhat shallow and hasty opinion by making a strawman oponent and then being mean to it.

—Sin—

-The GG has little to do with what I managed to get to but is a sarcastic remark at people who fall in the latter category.

-You make it sound like I magically succeeded at everything. I didn’t. You also don’t know the things which I have sacrificed to get to where I am and what I got and did not get in return. I also never said to fail was to be inadequate. I said to give up is to be inadequate.

-Strawmen: I’m extrapolating what is being said means and providing real life observations of it in action and my conclusions to these observations. I also never said whoever disagrees with me is jealous. The jealousy comment was regarding a specific context and quote which you completely ignored.
-Strawmen are useful to get a quick point through without having to go into long stories about individuals in different kinds of situations. Then the posts would never end. In the interests of keeping the discussion focused, I’m keeping it shallow to introduce concepts and ideas that can then be addressed in detail as required.