Wednesday, May 16, 2012

jaybee x

Be the person that you want to be. Fight for it - even if you have to fight yourself. Don't let your subconscious worm its way into planting seeds of frustration and anxiety and worry. Remind yourself of those promises, don't disregard them because they're too complicated. What's more important than a promise to yourself? They were the dreams you had, at a time where it was possible to dream. Who made the announcement that it was over, time was up, it was out of style?

As a child, I didn't have grand dreams for myself. I don't recall being particularly imaginative, I knew that it was impossible to fly, and that Santa had the same handwriting and taste in gifts as my mother which could only mean one thing. And looking back, although excited for life and my future, I don't feel that I allowed myself to dream like kids in Omo advertisements do. I was too busy being a smart ass, beating Amanda in handwriting and everything else, and doing high kicks in people's faces. Listening to Randy Pausch list his childhood dreams, his passions, his love for life that was ignited by the simplest of things, it all makes me a bit annoyed at Little Tham for always wanting to be older than I was (though not to the extent that Manny drinks espressos and invests in make believe stocks).

I never dared to dream big, for fear that those aspirations wouldn't be fulfilled. I allowed myself the little joys, frozen grape juice boxes and rolling down the grassy hill near the oval before I developed my lovely pollen allergies. I treasured the immediacy of achievements that only took weeks, like stamps on my gymnastics skills cards. I failed to aim for something out of this world, and it broke my heart when little Jasper said he wanted to be an astronaut and his older sister rolled her eyes at me and said "No he won't". And maybe it's my monthly rush of hormones that has me contemplating how it took me so long to realise my lack of imagination for what my life could be. But with my whole life ahead of me - lists of new years resolutions that get shorter and shorter until they're just a scribble on a torn post-it, journals that get tossed into a storage box - whose voice makes you disregard all the failed attempts but your own?

So listen. Don't tell her to shut up and go play hopscotch. Don't tell her what's impossible and what's ludicrous. Figure it out on your own - you deserve to give yourself that chance.

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