Today is the eighth day of the 33 days challenge. The question for today was: “What’s your childhood dream?”.
I’m still working on the backlog, but we’re getting there.
Now, back to the answers.
C.F. “My childhood dream was to travel the world. Each evening, when I went to sleep, I was imagining that the bed was a ship that I was boarding. Actually, Tom Sawyer’s raft, floating down the Mississippi River… I guess back then, Tom Sawyer was my best friend. I also liked Jules Verne’s “Two years vacation”. My dream became true, I lived abroad for seven years and had enough of travelling. Now I just want to have a family and read again “Tom Sawyer’s Adventures” with the kids.”
Awesome. Traveling around the world is something that I could do anytime.
A.A. “My childhood dream is to fly above the trees. Hmm, now putting together information made me discovered some side effects of this recurrent dream. First: I am usually late because I can’t evaluate correctly the distance or the regular obstacles existing in Bucharest 😉 Second: I look at people’s windows all the time. I am curios to see how they are different even if they have the same shape.”
Did you ever try paragliding? I did once and flying above the trees is really interesting, that I can say. Just keep dreaming.
S.C “I have always dreamed of travelling to different, exotic, mostly warm countries. One of them is Australia. I have also always dreamed of being in a position of helping my family more (financially and otherwise – spend more time with them, take them places, talk and laugh together etc). And I have always dreamed of having the freedom of doing so. I am still hoping and dreaming.”
Actually, Australia is affordable. I wouldn’t move there, mostly because of the climate, but flew above it a few times and it’s definitely among the places I really want to visit someday too.
C.O. “Hi, Dragos, and thanks for making me dive a bit into my childhood memories… My childhood dream was to be beautiful… As a girl I didn’t like myself at all and I was struggling with quite a bunch of inferiority complexes. I also dreamed to be liked – by my parents, boys, people I considered highly intelligent… There was a turning point at 28 (it really took that long…) when I suddenly became sure that I wouldn’t have wanted to exchange places with anybody – I was great the way I was… And the story of edifying myself goes on… So, I’m still following my childhood dream of becoming the best version of myself…”
I always find that type of insight fascinating. Around 28-30 years people usually leave their “cocoon” and start to act a bit more maturely. I remember I started my first company around the same age.
J.P. “My childhood dream was to be Flash Gordon- this evolved into my love for making movies- I’m still working towards that goal- never give up on your dreams.”
Flash Gordon sounds good. Just keep dreaming.
S.L. “My childhood dream is to be a writer. I’m on track now after years of shame that prevent me from doing so. I live in a very critical family. When I tell my parents about my dreams, they would have 100 reasons why I can’t achieve it. I translated the criticism into my writing. I have always wanted to be the best. I fret over format, structure and arrangement. I couldn’t get the words out. I feel a lot of shame when I have to reveal a deep part of myself in my writing. I’ve started a few blogs, all unsuccessful, because I’m covering up a lot of myself. Then, I commit myself to just write. I allow words to flow through me without editing them. I don’t think about the end-goal, how it would look good, etc. I don’t even think about publishing. They’re just the by-product of my writing. Nobody needs to see my work, but I have to be honest with myself 100%. I’ve been doing it for a few days already. It works! Being a writer is no longer my ambition. It is part of me. I feel so much at peace now.”
I can so relate with this. Just look below, at my answer. I also wanted to be a writer. And I also do this free form writing every once in a while. It just feels good, isn’t it?
B.D. “My childhood dream kept changing through the years. First, I wanted to be an astronomer. Then I wanted to be a biologist. Then I wanted to be a radio D.J. Then I wanted to be a musician. Then I wanted to be a writer. Then I wanted to speak several languages and be a translator. Then I wanted to be a dietician. Well….I am now 52, and I have been: a bank teller, a store manager, an ESL teacher, a musician, a writer, and a certified nutrition consultant. So, I would say I got to do 4 out of the 6 things I wanted to do. That’s not bad! The trouble is: I never made any more than $18,000/year (U.S. dollars) It’s really not enough to live on. I am now the owner and writer of 2 blogs: one on nutrition, and the other on personal development. But I am so distracted by everyday life situations, I can’t seem to get either one off the ground, plus I’m disabled and heading towards getting diabetes, so I think I need to fix my body before my head will help me reach my goal of being a successful writer!”
Well, at least you had a lot of diversity in your life. I’ve been doing a lot of different things myself, so I can understand you. But a little bit of grounding is necessary. Even compulsory, if you want to really make it.
Here’s my answer to this question.
I don’t remember what was my childhood dream. I don’t think I had one, actually. I think I was happy just the way I was, as happy as any kid can be. Which is: totally happy.
But. There is a “but”. Although I didn’t remember having a childhood dream, I remember having a teenage dream, if I may call it like this. It was very powerful and I clearly remember it: I wanted to become a famous writer. My role model was Ernest Hemingway. I was quite a bit into American writers, I was discovering Walt Whitman, e.e. cummings, Ezra Pound, William Faulkner, and was consuming them avidly. My favourite book was “A moveable feast”, there were pages and pages I knew by heart. All that atmosphere in Paris, the sense of freedom and passion that exuded form that book felt so alive that I was projecting my future existence in that exact location, doing the exact same thing: writing fiction and being free in Paris.
Between 14 and 16 years I wrote hundreds of poems and dozens of short stories. Then, life interfered and I didn’t became a writer. Or at least not a writer in the sense of the image I formed during that time.
If I do think at how I live my life now, I think I’m very close to that image. I don’t write fiction books (yet). But I do write almost daily on this blog and on other blogs. I had two books translated into Korean. I don’t eat in a bistro in Paris, but I work in a Starbucks. I’m a blogger. I don’t think the concept of a blogger existed in Hemingway’s Paris. But it does exist in the world I live now.
Yes, I think I came pretty close to my teenage dream.
If you want to be a part of this 33 days challenge, and receive the next 31 questions, all you have to do is to sign up here. It takes only a minute.
