Dreams never seem to come easy. It sounds so romantic to say, “Go! Follow your dreams!” However, reality rarely lives up to our romantic ideas, and I have found that dreams are hard to achieve. They take work, patience, and persistence. At times, it is easy to lose sight of the dream in the struggle to see it fulfilled. No matter how much work I put into my own dreams, I find that time does not make the struggle easier. In some ways, the more work I put into my dreams, the more difficult it became to fulfill them.
At one time, I regretted the efforts I made to succeed in following my dreams. When I started learning to play the piano, I dreamed of one day becoming a professional pianist. For eight years, I practiced and took lessons and classes. I worked hard in the pursuit of my dream, but the work became a strain. What was once a source of enjoyment and inspiration for me became a boredom and an obligation. The change was not immediate, but after so many years I began to understand that I no longer felt inspired when I pressed my fingers to the familiar keys once more. I began to see that in pursuing my dream, I had lost it.
During this time, one of my teachers was very strict. It became hard for me to take the harsh criticism and nitpicking. No matter how hard I worked, it seemed I would never be good enough to succeed. The pressure built until I felt all the pleasure of playing had become a chore. The constant critique of my work made me lose sight of my dream. After working so hard to achieve that dream of being a professional, I gave up playing the piano. I no longer felt excited when I sat down to play. There seemed little reward in work that was never good enough. When I stopped, I knew it was time to move on to a new dream. At the time, it was hard to believe I would find one again.
My interest with horseback riding came after I went riding with my father. That first ride we enjoyed together inspired me to embrace a new passion for riding. I grew more and more interested in the sport. When I started taking riding lessons, I began with the same focus and determination I had when I started playing the piano; I wanted to be a professional, but above all I wanted to have fun and to feel excited for each lesson and each opportunity to practice and hone my skill. Riding empowered me and made me feel strong and confident. After my disillusionment with my first dream, this new opportunity to feel passion for something was most welcome.
At first, I embraced my new dream wholeheartedly. Piano lessons and routines had taught me to value hard work, and so I began my riding lessons with a desire to excel. There are many small things that one learns from riding a horse. It is important to keep good posture, to maintain balance, and to communicate with one’s mount confidently. I felt excited and proud in the practice of my new skill. The disappointment and boredom I had felt when playing the piano had been replaced with this new, thrilling dream. Practicing my new skill left me feeling energized instead of drained, inspired instead of bored, and the feeling was one I had missed after all that time I’d dedicated to playing the piano.
Despite the enthusiasm I felt going in, my interest with riding also tapered off. After so many lessons and so much practice, I began to feel that same nagging sensation that all the joy of the activity had gone. No matter how hard I tried to feel the same exhilaration as when I’d started, I could not will myself to change. It made me think—is a dream truly achievable in this life? Will all my interests eventually lapse into chores and tasks that need doing? No matter how hard I tried to enjoy those old pursuits, the fact remained that they had lost much of their excitement for me. That left me with little but the routine to manage, and I found it difficult to keep that up for long.
In the end, I found that the pursuit of a dream is just that—a pursuit. It is a never-ending chase with a quarry that cannot be caught. No matter how hard I tried to achieve perfection with my piano playing, perfection could not be achieved. No matter how much time I invested with my riding, no amount of time or effort could make me feel fulfilled in my pursuit of a new dream. It sometimes seems to me that most dreams are born only to die—or perhaps life is made up of small dreams that we fulfill in unexpected ways.
While it seems sometimes that the ultimate end of all dreams is to be cast aside for new ones, a part of me wonders if this is a bad thing. Now, I look back on my time at the piano keys or astride a horse and I reflect on those lessons and hours of practice without regret. Of course it was never easy for me to give up on my dreams; even now, I look to the future and wonder what new passions may await me. Maybe one day I will return to the dreams I left behind, or maybe I will find new ones. Whatever happens, I hope I have learned from the pursuit of these two dreams that once were so important to me. I hope that through every hardship and struggle to achieve, I’ve been made a better person in the end.
