Wednesday 24 November 2010

Childhood Dreams to Adult Reality

My youngest boy will be 3 in a couple of weeks and my eldest girl is in her last year of Primary School. The fact that I am not getting an younger either has made be take stock of my life and to really question whether I am truly happy personally and professionally. Has the childhood dreams I once had been fulfilled or is there more out there for me to go and get.

Personally Ive never been happier, great wife, 4 wonderful kids everything is okay on that front and always has been. As for my childhood dreams well, I never made it as a professional footballer so Ill have to cross that one off the list of things to do before I'm 40. My other childhood dream was to write a novel. I have started so many down the years and never finished them.

How many of us have actually followed a dream we had as a child? Not many of us I bet. How many of us have put aside our own dreams for the sakes of others? Most of us. There's nothing wrong with that. One dream I had as a kid was to have my own kids and I'm very proud of the people that they are turning into. They make me proud and laugh every day and I wouldn't change that for the world. We all make choices and sacrifices as we get older. Its important though too hang onto those childhood dreams, they are what made you the person you are today, those games you played as a kid helped shape you into the person you now are didn't they?.

As I said earlier my other childhood dream was to write a novel. However now I am in the process of writing two at once. One of them started off as a treat for my kids and which I post on here every Friday called Sammy The Elf. Ive decided though that I want too turn this into a book. I am struggling to keep it down too blog size as my imagination keeps running away with me. The other is on the back burner for now and some of you have seen the first half of it. The rest I shall complete later.

What I'm trying to say is this. You are never too old to have a go at what you really want to do. You can make all the excuses in the world for not doing it then when your old and grey you can look back at what regrets you have and beat yourself up for not giving them a go. Or you can find the time to do them, to take a chance, if you fail so what? At least you gave it a go.

Ive had my fingers burnt with two writing courses recently and Ive decided that I am not going to spend money on them anymore. What I am going to do is to write every day. I will read and then read some more and when Ive done that I shall write and read again. This is what I want to do with my life. Its not going to be easy as I still have to work and pay the bills and for now the job HAS to come first. I'm lucky I have a job I know that, and I enjoy it still which many people cant say. However if I am lucky enough one day to get that break, whether it be 5 or 10 years time I'm going too take it with both hands and really have a go at it.

I will keep knocking on that door and doing what I do whether its read or not I don't mind. If you don't enjoy it you wont read it. I write for practise and my own personal pleasure nothing more. If you guys read it superb I'm really touched by that and thank you. I'm now stepping up a gear and going to have a final go at making my childhood dream come true.

To make the 10 year old me proud of the man I am and the way I went about it.

2 comments:

  1. That is really heavy when you think about it, I could ponder that question for hours.
    but that is what all good writers are meant to make readers do)

    There was so many things that I wanted to do when I was a child. I dreamed of being a pilot, living abroad running my own company... Making lots of money. Did I follow them - yeah, did I succeed you may ask... Yeah to a certain degree until I left my wife. I never accomplished the pilot part then hey no wonder im addicted to MS flight simulator too many hours clocked up on that. I think one lesson that I had to learn in life... ok perhaps 2... Your still making me think!! Not to throw my toys out of the pram, you could say... and the other well that was the hardest lesson of them all time and patience that took years.

    If I were to throw the question back at you.. I would ask do you have any regrets ?? I think that would take even more time to think about.

    Regards

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  2. Do I have regrets? Yes I suppose I do. Although at the time the decisions I made were for what appeared to be the right reasons. The beauty of getting older is that I now hbe more wisdom than I had when I was younger. To now look back on my life and see the mistakes I made sometimes makes me cringe a little, but and this is the important bit, I wouldn't be where I am now doing what I'm doing without having made those decsions however wrong I perceive them to be. I'm a great believer I'm fate, the choices I make are for a reason. My biggest regret though is that I didn't have the courage to start writing earlier. I'll just have too make up for it now won't I!.

    Kindest regards

    Anthony

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