Live Like There’s No Today, Dream Like There’s no Tomorrow
By Rippinpal Sindher
Hopscotch. Barbies. Otter Pops. That was the life. Being a child without a worry on my mind. Each day was the beginning of spontaneity, getting dirty in the sandbox, and certainly not worrying about germs. Somewhere along the line, though, the gym replaced hopscotch. Term papers took the place of Barbies, and Otter Pops ceased to exist amongst “healthy” frozen yogurt. To top all of those changes, sanitizer was born, and my life never remained the same. I struggled to maintain the simplicities of my childhood in the complexities of the modern world, and somehow the transition deprived me of the one thing that made growing up worthwhile: believing all of my dreams would become a reality. I remember being young and thinking that dreams sat aloft clouds. Ah yes. White, fluffy clouds that made you feel like you can do anything and become anything, so long as you believed you could. Now, I am not saying that this is untrue as you bridge into adulthood, but unless you believe with your whole heart that those dreams can become a reality and you are willing to resist advances from the negativity that surrounds you, then it is most likely you will sleep without dreaming, and wake without believing. Basically, you will doubt your dreams, but that is the bridge that crosses one over from childhood to adulthood. It is this bridge of doubt that filters the dreams that you work to protect from those that you care less about with time. Let me put this into perspective with my own life. As a child, I heard it all: you can be anything, do anything, and the list continues. While I certainly agree that you can do anything, as you get older you realize that “anything” is loosely defined and when put into practice, actually becomes severed by outside forces. You confront hindrances, undergo transformations that require evaluations of those dreams, and while not all of them come true, as a person you shield those which you believe to be more than dreams; you believe them to be your destiny.
I dreamt many things as a child. When I looked to the sky, I saw those clouds floating overhead and I felt a rush of happiness with my hopscotch-Barbie-Otter Pop life. There were no worries for a very long time. Then slowly, the droplets of doubt fell into my life in the form of unexpected encounters, tragedies, events that turned the white, fluffy clouds into a dark, somber sky. Hardships followed. Friends were lost. Dreams would have to be evaluated, but as my professor once said, “You can’t just live in void, so it has to be replaced by something else” and evaluating dreams does not mean someone is giving-up on them. As the course of life changes, your purpose changes. You discover your strengths in comparison to your weaknesses, and as long as you remain true to yourself, the streak of sunshine penetrates overhead.