Take Your Dreams And Go Back To Where You Came From

I live in la-la land a lot of the time. I will hide behind the excuse that I’m an Aquarian and we reserve the right to be dreamers. ;-)

We went through some tough financial times as a family and of course at times it was very depressing. But my parents, my dad in particular, is infectiously optimistic and a dreamer. They always encouraged us to dream and dream big – assuring us that we shouldn’t worry about how to make the dreams come true. It’ll work itself out, they promised.

In The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho writes “And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”

It’s a simple but beautiful line. I love you Mr Coelho and The Alchemist is one of my favourite books, but I think my parents beat you to the punch. They’ve been telling me this since as far back as I can remember. They are wiser than I believed at the time. It did work out for us and my sister and I have realised many of our dreams and are en route to fulfilling some more.

I’m still a dreamer but at 26, I’m slightly jaded too and I know fulfilling those dreams would’ve been near impossible in a less fortunate environment and I’m grateful for the opportunities I’ve had.

In yesterday’s post I talked about the children in the Kenyan refugee camp and their dreams. The power of believing in your dreams is incredible. Sometimes, it’s all you have. These kids have lost everything, live their lives in limbo in a refugee camp that is only marginally safer than their war-torn homeland – but they still have big dreams. It’s sad because you wonder if the universe is conspiring on their behalf too?

It’s a Catch-22. Without their dreams for their future, life would probably seem very bleak to them. But, how many of these dreams are biting the dust?

When you tell a refugee family to “go back to where you came from”, you are not only denying them their right to life, but killing the dreams and hopes of young children who have little else to live for. 


*This post is part of the NaBloPoMo challenge for July 2011.