Tuesday, December 04, 2007

My dreams

I still remembered the very first job interview I had after I graduated from university. It was an interview for an IT post of a MNC, and the interviewer was an american. After some routine technical questions, he asked me to talk about my dreams. I did not know any “model answers” for such questions, and being a naïve fresh graduate, I just answered it from the bottom of my heart.

Well, people who only know me via my online identity would probably guess that my dream is to set-up my own company and be a successful entrepreneur. Or something along the lines of becoming a great software developer and creating some killer software products. But those weren’t the answers that came to my mind at that point of time.

Admittedly, I am quite a dreamer. I had a lot of dreams. To setup and grow my own company is one of them, to achieve breakthrough in my personal research in a specialized area is another. But when the question was posed to me, only one prominent dream came to my mind.

I told the interviewer that my dream is to build a farm cum animal shelter. Thousands of animals had been abandoned every year in this tiny island alone, and most of them had to be put to sleep. I wanted to create a haven for these helpless animals, whose only wish is to survive in this world that is dominated by human supremacy. I knew it would take a lot of money to fulfill such a dream, but I will still work towards it no matter how long it takes.

I did not get the job eventually. I did not even get through to the second round. I did not know whether it was due to my over-idealistic answer. But at least I spoke from my heart, and I would still give the same answer today. The only thing different is I had quite a couple of additions to my dream list, and most of them are not easily attainable.

Many friends that I know of, had in some way or another given up on most of their dreams. It seems that the older they grew, the more dreams they discarded. Somehow, as you grow older, pragmatism will inevitably override idealism.

I am still working towards fulfilling my dreams. And in the process, adding new ones. If I am able to live till 85 years old, I would still have more than 50 years to achieve my dreams. That’s a hell lot of time, so why give up?


P/S: I have added a “Support these Causes” section on the right panel of this blog. Those are free ads space for charitable causes. Feel free to click the links. I will be adding more in the future.

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