What is a dream worth? Not very much. If there was so much value placed on a single dream/vision/idea then there would be a market to trade those dreams/visions/ideas. People would buy and sell them like stocks and arbitrage for undervalued dreams would make investors rich.
But there isn’t.
In fact ideas are a dime a dozen. People are always talking about the great ideas that they had but never followed through on. Inventions they came up with but never patented and never built the proof-of-concept for. They feel like they are the ones that should be getting paid for these inventions because they thought of it first. Unfortunately they have no legal claim to those inventions because they did nothing but come up with an idea.
That’s the thing. Ideas are cheap.
So are dreams.
It’s easy to sleep and dream. It’s easy to daydream. It’s easy to talk and share dreams. But you know what hard to do? It’s hard to *realize* a dream. It’s hard to *fulfill* a dream. Because the problem with dreams is that they’re not real. That’s why it’s called a dream and not called a *reality*. Because reality is worth money. Reality is traded on the stock exchanges. Reality has intrinsic value and worth. Dreams? Not worth much at all. Maybe worth a little bit of inspiration and motivation. Maybe worth a few clicks on Instagram. But to me a dream is like a distant relative dropping by to surprise you with a nice little gift that was purchased from the airport duty free shop and then leaving and never returning again. Basically worth as much as a box of 鳳梨酥. You might as well gift it to someone else because it isn’t worth much.
But then why do people put so much weight and emphasis on dreams? Because dreams are beautiful, dreams can be inspirational and dreams are extremely easy to share. But 99.9% of the time dreams never come to fruition.
That’s why I don’t spend time dreaming. And I’m terrified of dreaming big.
Instead I focus on *the work*.
If I want to run a marathon, I don’t think about running 26.2 miles. I think about running 1 mile 26 times. Sure, I can’t run 1 mile 26 times right now. But I know I can run 1 mile. And I know I can take a break between miles. Who cares how long the break is right now? Let’s just assume 5 minutes per break. With breaks, I can probably run 10 miles right now. That’s about 40% of my target. Over time I can increase that length. Maybe from 10 to 15 and from 15 to 20 and then eventually 26.2 miles. And I can also shorten my break time between miles. Finally I can speed up my running speed.
And that’s how you run a marathon.
Dreams must be broken down into bite-sized pieces. Consumable and palatable and digestible pieces. There must be a plan of attack, a road map, a strategy for how to get from A to B. Even Joey Chestnut, who holds the world record of eating 76 hot dogs in 10 minutes, he must eat 1 hot dog at a time (okay maybe sometimes 2 at a time). Furthermore Joey Chestnut has a complete gameplan with a proven track record for how to consume 76 hot dogs in 10 minutes. It’s not by accident or pure talent that he was eventually able to take down Takeru Koayashi and has won 15 out of 16 times he has competed in the Nathan’s Hot Dog contest.
Steps. Small steps. One step at a time, one second at a time, over minutes that become hours that become days that become weeks that become months that become years. That’s how dreams become fulfilled.
But you can’t really share the hard work on Instagram. No one has the patience to watch that stuff. It’s boring. The Instagram audience is all about “Show me the money!” Show me the bling, the private jets, the private islands, the hot girls. Even if it’s not real. Even if it’s all a lie. The audience would much rather buy-in to those *dreams* than learn about all the sacrifices and the struggles and the turmoil and the 學費 paid to get to those results. Dreams get clicks. Showing the behind the scenes (BTS) and the hard work gets “bounce” (a website statistic where the user leaves the page).
So you ask me again, what is a dream worth? And I’ll say the same thing I did when I was 31 back in 2011… Not very much.
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