Follow your heart no matter what

"If you don't know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else." Yogi Berra once said.

All of us have dreams, ambitions and goals in life. A human life without dreams is a mundane one. But is it enough for one to have just dreams and ambitions but does nothing to achieve them? True some of the dreams have many road blocks, many challenges on the way to uproot. Its only strong will power and determination which will carry us through these obstacles. The reason for some people not working through their dreams is because they don’t feel that the dreams they are following is important. Here are a few points that one needs to ponder over before dreaming of a goal:





1. Do I really want to be there?

If we really want something very badly, we would find the necessary impetus to grasp it. If I happen to fall into deep water, and if I don’t know how to swim, my first effort would be to come out of that deep water at any cost. We are always highly motivated when certain things mean a lot to us.

2. Am I ready to work hard to achieve this goal?

Laziness takes one nowhere. The one and only way to combat laziness is hard work. And the previous point holds more weight here. If the dream is inspiring, laziness will vanish into thin air without any effort.

3. Am I ready to work till the end and not quit mid-way?

Life is full of challenges to face and changes to accept. There may be days when we get up in the morning to find frustratingly that things are not as we would want them to be. Many times our acquaintances and our relatives disappoint us and let us down. That’s the time when we have to believe in ourselves. A belief that these events are happening in our life to make our dreams come true. And not be a quitter.

Here’s a story about a young man Monty Roberts who owns a horse ranch. He was the son of a horse trainer who had to go from stable to stable, race track to race track, farm to farm, ranch to ranch training horses. As a result, the boy’s high school career was continually interrupted. He narrates his story here.

When he was a senior, he was asked to write a paper about what he wanted to be and do when he grew up.

“That night he wrote a seven-page paper describing his goal of someday owning a horse ranch. He wrote about his dream in great detail and he even drew a diagram of a 200-acre ranch, showing the location of all the buildings, the stables and the track. Then he drew a detailed floor plan for a 4,000-square-foot house that would sit on a 200-acre dream ranch.
“He put a great deal of his heart into the project and the next day he handed it in to his teacher. Two days later he received his paper back. On the front page was a large red F with a note that read, `See me after class.’

“The boy with the dream went to see the teacher after class and asked, `Why did I receive an F?’

“The teacher said, `This is an unrealistic dream for a young boy like you. You have no money. You come from an itinerant family. You have no resources. Owning a horse ranch requires a lot of money. You have to buy the land. You have to pay for the original breeding stock and later you’ll have to pay large stud fees. There’s no way you could ever do it.’ Then the teacher added, `If you will rewrite this paper with a more realistic goal, I will reconsider your grade.’

“The boy went home and thought about it long and hard. He asked his father what he should do. His father said, `Look, son, you have to make up your own mind on this. However, I think it is a very important decision for you.’ “Finally, after sitting with it for a week, the boy turned in the same paper, making no changes at all.

He stated, “You can keep the F and I’ll keep my dream.”

Monty then turned to the assembled group and said, “I tell you this story because you are sitting in my 4,000-square-foot house in the middle of my 200-acre horse ranch. I still have that school paper framed over the fireplace.”

He added, “The best part of the story is that two summers ago that same schoolteacher brought 30 kids to camp out on my ranch for a week.” When the teacher was leaving, he said, “Look, Monty, I can tell you this now. When I was your teacher, I was something of a dream stealer. During those years I stole a lot of kids’ dreams. Fortunately you had enough gumption not to give up on yours.”

“Don’t let anyone steal your dreams. Follow your heart, no matter what.”