Of Dreams and Rat Races

I've come across many people talking about (not) running the rat race. The question of why we shouldn’t run the rat race being apart, the real question is why are there so many people talking about the rat race.

People say that they don't really know what they want to achieve in life, what they want to make a career out of. Hence, they are left with no option but to choose from one of the several standard streams offered by our state/universities depending on what percentage they’ve secured an then make a career in that field. They may or may not like that stream. Eventually though, they learn to live with it. It’s like having an arranged marriage with life.

I believe that everyone has the potential to at least have a dream. The problem lies in our mentality – we just don’t give non academic dreams much weight. Ergo, we discard our own dreams even before considering them as options. For example, even if some loves to play basketball, playing basketball for India won’t even be considered as a career option.

Undoubtedly, there is a huge risk involved. What if one can’t really make it big? Hence, one should have a fallback option. However, the fallback option should remain a fallback option and not take preference over one’s dream.

As the quote goes -

It’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.
- Alfred Lord Tennyson