Dream on!! dream until your dream comes true....

Have you ever followed a dream?

It was like two different people inside my head, talking. Baffling my mind. A dream? Well, I sleep pretty deep, and dream every other night! But that wasn't what it was about. I was trying to answer my own questions. Within my head. I had never done this before. Felt like I was sick.

But could not help it. The question I myself created, never left me alone. No answers popped up from the sub-conscious. I decided to think over it. Have I ever dreamt? Yes! Now I knew what this was about. It was a question I had to answer. No more escapes. A query that could have kept my fresh plans at bay. It was about a challenge I was trying to take up. It was about CAT. The big one!!

I am quite lucky with company I get. Since I was a kid, I have had good friends, healthy family relations, and quality competitors. Lucky, because I never worked hard to gain these. Perhaps the reason I never valued the same. Company that kept telling me I was brilliant, had a lot of potential. I had a good academic record back then(what mates used to call toppers), loved almost any kind of sport and was participative in all the 'third-world acts' of a kid. A complete affair. Never concerned though. But times passed, environment around me changed and so did I. More inclination towards things that entertain. School was no more fun. For ranks I even slipped out of top 10 of my class. I knew not what was coming.

Mediocrity, now it shows in me. My lifestyle. Considering sports, I support Rafael Nadal. A great player. Yet Roger Federer is considered the best ever in tennis. But I am a die-hard fan of his(Nadal). I support Liverpool FC, although the club has been dominated by bigger footballing giants Man Utd and others for past 20 years. Because when they win, I see some hope. Champions we have been. Greatest ever club. But in a condition of high uncertainity, in current years. The abilities, the skills are all there. But things dont seem working. When the underdogs turn the world upside down, its like what I have wished for years.  People writing them off. The system against them. Lo! and still they managed it! Thats a bigger champion for me than any other. The dark horse.

Mediocrity, a world where I didn't belong at all, according to the people who knew me. But the facts said I was badly stuck in it. All the winner qualities were gone. I was unable to deliver in any kind of challenge. Because I was satisfied. The zeal never broke up within me. And even if I did excel somewhere, I was considered a surprise outcome. People would commend even if I was beaten. Just because I took that task up! Still things didn't bother me. I said to myself, 'I just did it, and I can do it again, anytime'. I simply felt better off not doing it. Except that one time when I had a desire to prove to couple of my teachers that I wasn't a loser in +2, where I went all out for Mathematics(although I got 99); I never even tried. Mediocrity had me.
 

And on today's date I was confused again. I had had bad experiences with graduation in engineering. Low on performance, lack of initiatives, an uninterested and laid-back attitude. And then this miraculous thing happened to me. Final semester of engineering. And I was DETAINED. Attendance concerns. Infact I had no attendance at all. I was popular in my college; for all the wrong reasons. Every student knew the name.. and I felt pointed fingers matching my face to it. The first ever bolt to my satisfied self! A bolt at a time when I was to carve out my career. I had plans, cliched though, but all were compromised. A certified loser.

Still I call it miraculous. And human-beings don't share bad miracles. There are no bad miracles. I took it far too optimistic to hurt me. I wasn't pathetic. I did not want to face pity. It is comforting; but sorry, comfort could deprive of the strength; I'd moved on pretty quickly. "Nothing's gonna change my world". Music of The Beatles kept playing in my mind. I informed every person who mattered, no inhibitions to stop me; and unhappy as I wasn't, people gave me all support and no pity. Lucky as I am with friends. :) To me this meant something new. Maybe it was time to think. I knew, I had nothing to lose now. Visibly. Something that had been restrained inside me for 20 odd years, and has been struggling to pop out. Something revolutionary. And it shapes my career too. I figured it out. I was taking CAT.

I reckoned the glory that CAT carries with it. Logical reasoning, basic quants and verbal abilities were all that it tests. Something is special about this one, I always thought. Even considered taking it before. But this time something was different. Some spark in me. Why CAT? Honestly the glory I talk of. The fields it tests upon. And the CHALLENGE it poses. That's all. I didn't want to know what was lying post-CAT. "Why MBA?" is not my question. I didn't care. A friend of mine to whom I owe this. We built this dream together. Not to suspect his efforts, he has already made it to Joka-land this year. IIM-C. The huge one. That's like Nishant! And when he was revered by all, I realized he had turned into a person I looked upto. Will always cherish those memories mate, and truly, you have my admiration(in absentia:))

CAT was the big platform where I could excel and leave behind mediocrity. At the same time that would take care of the million-dollar word 'career'.

Have I ever possessed a dream? NO! not before today; and that's the difference between yesterday and tomorrow. Now I dare to.

I dont know yet where I will land up, or where I stand. But this energy has to be of a winner. I dare to dream of an IIM C call converted..

A book I had read a few years back, Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach, means a lot to me. Every line of that book is like a holy sermon to me. It proves that a dream you live, makes you immortal. A seagull who dreams to fly high. Fly, not just to feed itself. But for the love of flying. The challenge. For me, what will be, is in the future, waiting for me. Waiting because I have dreamed about this. I have created the world for me. What others think, I have never ever cared, and this continues.

This is life-affirming. This sets an upbeat mood. Have I ever dreamt? Yes... I finally have a lucid dream. And I am gonna live it for sure!!