Fuel the fires of daydreams

Everyone tells you that laughter is the best medicine, endorphin stimulating, good for the heart, good for the soul. Nothing like a hearty laugh to melt your troubles or at least push them into a dark corner of your mind to be forgotten for the moment or, hopefully, for good.

But what about the value of dreams? The wonder of building castles in the air at every opportunity?

There are some among us who elevate little pinpricks into mountains of sorrow, and there are others who blow up stray thoughts into wonderful visions of happiness and propel themselves into a world of make believe with little or no provocation. They seem a happy lot, transporting themselves into a state of carefree contentment.

Earlier in life, it seemed practical to wait before launching into a full-scale daydream, but now, when reality doesn't seem capable of producing the feel-good endorphins, why not make every minor molehill of possibility into a mountain of probability? Look what you get...

You see an advertisement in the papers and you think the job opportunity sounds good. You've wanted to shift fields for sometime, you've dreamed of having a forum of your own to express yourself, you really need to be someone's boss instead of being bossed over, you've always believed your talent could be better used somewhere else.

Before you know it, you, your family and your friends are all a part of it. You've thought of where you're going to live when you shift to your dream destination, you've planned the changes you're going to make in the job profile and the vision you'll bring to the new company.

You believe, as they do, that you have a willing ear and you can hear out the aspirations of those who work under you. Oh, you're going to do a lot for them - give them the purpose and focus you've always wanted to give someone.

All this, before you pen your application and long, long before you are called for an interview or are even considered for the job.

It may seem like a waste of time but for you, it's been a wonderful foray into the world of 'maybe' and 'someday' and it surely keeps the blood flowing and the heart in fine fettle and you have got rid of the negative connotation of making a mountain out of a molehill as well.

There was a time in the not so distant past, when you'd keep your plans to yourself. Apply for the job, attend the interview if you were lucky enough to be called for it, look the competition up and down and decide you're never going to make it, come home and dump your resume into the recycle bin, sigh and put the whole experience out of your mind.

You didn't dare to share your dream because you didn't want to build up hopes, you didn't want to make your aspirations known in case you failed, you didn't want to add to the competition by risking your colleague getting to know, the reasons for secrecy far outweighed the inclination to build your mansion in the clouds. And so the opportunity came and went and the sheer joy of fantasising was missing.

Now on the downswing of our own lives, we still need to fuel the fires of our daydreams, to keep the flames stoked, remain in cloud cuckoo land and just have a jolly good time imagining what may happen, even if it never comes to pass and how wonderful it is that we have the next generation's fledgling steps, more important to us than our own, to add to this free-for-all fantasy!

Cheryl Rao is a journalist based in India.