Since I was eight I loved coffee. It wasn’t just the sweet flavor that drew me, but the hint of some deep, hidden bitterness made me crave for it; the fact that it was a drink that only grown ups could have made it even more appealing. Since then my appreciation for coffee has grown, and now instead of the sweetness of it, I want to get to know its bitter side, because it seems like that is the more natural, real side of coffee. The bitterness is where the wonderful scent of coffee comes from in the first place.
Also since I was eight I loved taking pictures. It wasn’t just the idea of a toy-like machine to play with that drew me, but the notion that I could capture a fragment of a moment, that I could isolate my perspective of a place through a lens onto paper that made cameras even more appealing. Since then my appreciation for cameras has grown, and now instead of just digital, I am intrigued by black-and-white film photography and video filmmaking.

The harmless sparks of interest that I had in coffee and in film grew over time into a bud of a dream, a desire to make these things more than mere hobbies of my life, into actual careers. I want to one day become a coffee shop-owning filmmaker, with a simple and petite abode on the rooftop of this to-be coffee shop of mine. I want to travel around parts of the world filming my journeys and the people I encounter, to get to know each of their stories and perspectives on life. It may sound like a far-fetched dream, I know, but I daydream and imagine my life as a filmmaker, my life immersed in a coffee-thick atmosphere, everyday. And it’s just quite lovely.
Do you have a dream? Actually, everyone has a dream. So let me rephrase that question to, “Are you willing to chase after that dream buried deep inside you?” Langston Hughes once wrote a poem called “A Dream Deferred”, and in it he describes the potential danger of leaving a dream to rot and “fester like a sore” in the depths of one’s heart. For anyone to avoid that disaster and to start achieving the dreams that they have, they must first discover the dream, then fervently and vividly imagine the dream in their minds every single day.
My discovery of my dream was not quick or easy. Since I was a child my mind was so jam-packed with future careers, one of which being a teacher by day and a singer by night. However, as I went through different experiences and was exposed to different things, my realization of what I want to do for the rest of my life became clearer. After all, the first step to begining is to begin. We need to get out there and be exposed to all the different kinds of stimuli that could intrigue our minds and hearts to ignite some hidden passion within us.
But I do also understand that there are limits to dreaming. Those limits aren’t defined to us by society, but rather by the extent to which we know we will go to achieve the dreams. When the Wright brothers set out to fly in the air, they must’ve been disparaged and taken as fools, yet they were determined because they did not identify the limit of their dreams to be that of which society placed before them. Likewise, no matter how foolish you may feel, if the conviction in your gut is overwhelmingly strong, then that dream has enough fuel to become reality. The difficult part is keeping that gut-feeling as strong as when you first start.
That is why we must continuously daydream and imagine ourselves within our dream, so that even our subconscious will be working towards achieving that image within our minds. I once read a part of a book that presented a formula to achieving dreams: VD=R. The letters stand for “vivid”, “dreaming”, and “reality”. So it is basically saying that when one constantly dreams vividly, that dream will become reality. It goes on to present numerous success stories of people that supposedly exercised this great technique of dreaming. But one thing I deem most important and vital to the realitization (making into reality) of dreams is this: positive perspective. Always create for yourself in your mind a bright future, not a dark one, so that you may have the strength and hope to go on; for people cannot survive, much less thrive, without hope.
Almost everyday, I physically record my dreams for the future, whether it is by blogging it, twittering it, writing it on the whiteboard, journaling it, doodling it, making lists of it, etc. Because of this constant reminding of my dreams, I am now almost 100% sure that in some way or another, I will be able to get to where I dream of, as long as it is the direction that the God I love will be well pleased with… But that’s another story for another essay. Until then, remember to experience, remember to imagine, and remember to hope. Happy dreaming!