I hope your dream is one that you can reach

I hope your dream only shows what you can grasp

Because success takes away as much as it gives

I hope your dream doesn’t give you anything too valuable

I hope your dream doesn’t gather too much attention

Keep it like a secret, always hold your breath

Because the world takes away as much as it gives

So I hope it’s a dream that isn’t too much like a dream

- Lost One, Epik High

This lyrics have been wandering in my mind for some times and it’s actually from a song by a well known musician. He’s hoping for people not to follow his path because the thing that once he called a dream (re: to be a successful musician) takes so many precious things from him. He even once had a big scandal that also took part in his father’s death. (You can google Tajinyo for more information)

Well, I feel like the song is really relatable for us. Or at least, for me. In today’s world we’re being fed with an enormous amount of so-called-motivators, telling us to DREAM BIG. BE SUCCESSFUL. BE RICH. Too many people, books, podcasts, articles are telling you this. Too many people have a dream to be a “successful person”. And most of the times, they correlate “success” with having a top career & being madly rich. So now I’d like to add up a different perspective that you can think as a conderation when you’re deciding things in your life

First, let’s drawback on WHY you want to “successful”. Many of the answers might be: “to be happy”

You want to be madly rich because you want to buy things that you like, to travel the world, so you could be happy.

You want to be a super famous person so you could gain attention and being liked by (maybe) half of the world, so you could be happy.

And so on, and so on.

But often those motivators are confusing you, whether it’s “SUCCESS” or HAPPINESS that you want to have in this life. When you drawback on why you want to be “success”, you might just realize that you want to be “successful” so you can BE HAPPY. Therefore actually, what you’re chasing for is HAPPINESS, not “SUCCESS”.

Happiness is always ahead of us

I think those motivational things are good to make us realize that we’re more than we think. That we can push ourself beyond our limit. That we can do things we think we couldn’t. But have you ever realized that those motivational things also take a big part in a way of thinking that happiness is always in the future? And when we are finally labeled as a “successful” person, who can guarantee us that we will be happy? How long do we have to endure to reach our happiness? If we discover that we’re not actually happy when we finally reach our dream to be a “successful person”, can we go back to where we were before? How easy will it be to go back?

Happiness is here and now

I always adore people who live simple but can feel so content and happy. Those kind of people are the best. Instead of chasing happiness, they are being happy and content with what they have now.

How wonderful it is if you can be happy with what you have rather than what’s in the future? Especially when we know future is the most uncertain thing in this life. Hey, don’t listen to those who tell you to dream. It’s ok not to dream. It’s ok not to get out of your comfort zone. That “another comfort zone” that those motivators are telling you to go to might be just an illusion. If you can be happy & content with your comfort zone, in my opinion that’s okay. You do good, you do you.

Little things matter

If you dream big until you think it’s your only source of happiness, then you will never happy if you don’t get it, right? Okay it might sound so extreme, at least think of it like this: if your dream is taking a big part in your happiness, then most of your happiness will be gone when you don’t reach your dream.

But how if your happiness consists of every little part of your life? How wonderful it is if we can be happy everyday by those small aspects in our life? A good music. A good meal. A morning walk with our pet. A smile from people that we love. A small chit chats with our family. These small things are also harder to be taken away from us. They’re relatively easier to find. Or, you could even discover your own “small things” that are easier to find.

Your own definition of “success”

I know that there are other reasons on why people want to be a “successful person”. Cliche words (but true): you need money but money is not everything. Afterall you’re a human being that need to survive in this harsh world that forces you to need money. You might also have responsibilities on your shoulder that require much money. Nothing is wrong with chasing money, we all need it. And sometimes our happiness needs money too. But how much do you need? Do you need as much money as a well known CEO? How can you achieve that? How long do you need to work? I think it’s good to think about these things first, not blindly chasing so-called-success-and-money, and also making sure that you’re happy in every progress. Define your own meaning of success, don’t blindly follow the definition of others. Yours might be different from those in “how to be a millionaire” books. Through this passage, I want you to see things from a different point of view. I want to kindly remind you that life is not only about being successful or not. I want to remind you — don’t forget to be happy. You might need your own definition of success so you can gain a certain amount of money in order to survive, but you might also need other things to be happy. I’m also actually quite confused with a famous phrase: work until you don’t need to introduce your name. Why the hell should people know my name before I introduce myself???? Why are they telling people to work their ass off for that?????? I get it that to some certain points it’s nice if people know us for good things, but is it really necessary to work our ass off with that thing in our end in mind?

Anyway it’s funny how I’m writing all of these but actually I’m also a person who used to dream big, who used to answer “to be a successful person” when people ask me who I want to be in the future. Don’t be like me. But now I’m in the progress of trying to make sure that my dreams are not taking too much of me. Not too valuable to have. And it’s okay if I don’t reach it anyway, at least I have tried my hardest. I want to try making my happiness consists of various things in my life. So when they are being taken for me, I can find my happiness again.

I’m not telling you not to dream big. I’m telling you it’s okay not to dream big. And I hope when your dreams are taken from you, you’re not left with nothing.

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(This post was originally published on 9 May 2018)