Dreams

Dreams, I’ve found, are powerful things. They are not just sources for inspiration and imagination, they elevate our existence and give it purpose and meaning.

As far back as I can remember, I’ve always been full of dreams.

Back when I was a child still in Primary 3 or 4, I saw a picture of a home on a hillside in a magazine and dreamed of living in it.

I remember drawing an architectural plan for the home with all the rooms, doors and windows and dimensions.

It’s what some might call a childhood fantasy but for me at the time, it was no fantasy.

It was very real, I literally thought I was going to build the home when I grew up.

My dreams changed as I grew older.

There was the time I thought I was going to be a scientist and inventor, after being inspired by what I read about Thomas Edison and I went and bought some test tubes and hydrochloric acid.

At one time, I dreamed of building a small hovercraft so I could drive it to Kuching.

Then there was the time I wanted to build a reflecting telescope and went everywhere looking for a concave mirror.

I gave up on it because concave mirrors were not something you could find in Borneo at that time.

These days, of course concave mirrors are common and every time I see one of them, I would remember looking for them when I was young.

When I was in Form 2, I saw a schedule of cargo ships going from Tanjong Mani (which was and still is a big coastal port) to Long Beach California.

I called up the shipping office and asked them how much it would cost to buy a ticket to Long Beach and they said something around $400.

I remember thinking, how was I going to save up $400 on my monthly allowance of $10?

But I started putting money into my Post Office savings account, with the plan of saving enough by the time I was old enough to leave.

As I got even older, my dreams became less farfetched and more realistic.

Instead of a hovercraft, I actually took my bike and rode it to Kuching with two friends.

After Form 5, I took the train to Bangkok with the intention of taking the overland route to Europe. I chickened out in Bangkok and went back home, much to my parents’ delight.

The thing about dreams is that I’ve never believed in just dreaming, I’ve always believed that you have to make them come true.

In that sense, I never differentiate between dreams and plans.

When a dream comes to me, I always have to turn it into reality.

This was something my mother, who was for all intents and purposes, a practical person, could never understand.

She always told me; don’t dream too much, you’ll just get disappointed.

When I was in the middle of trying to make a dream come true, which was to make a CD no one has heard before, my mother was staying with me at the time.

Every morning, after I had had a recording session at the school, she would ask me, so you think you got it?

And when I told her no, she would say, why try so hard? You know this is all you can do. Be satisfied with what you got.

But of course I wasn’t satisfied.

Because I had a dream about this incredible CD I was going to make, I could hear it in my head and I knew I had to make it come true.

I believe so much in pursuing my own dreams when I see someone with a dream, I would always encourage them to go for it too.

Some might say this is just deluding the person, or giving them false hopes.

But after my own experiences in pursuing my dreams, I would never try to deny anyone the opportunity to pursue theirs too.

A dream to me is like seeing an oasis in the distance in a desert, if you do not make an effort to go towards it, you would never know if it’s just a mirage or a real oasis.

That’s why I always say, the only thing worse than a dream unfulfilled is a dream unpursued because by not pursuing it, you’ve already predetermined that it will always remain a mirage.

Because what if it was an oasis? You would’ve really missed out.

A few years ago, when my son was going to school in San Diego, every time I drove down I-5 to visit him and I saw the freeway signs to Long Beach, I would remember my plans to get on those cargo ships.

Some might say that was just a childhood fantasy too but like all my other dreams, it was no fantasy to me.