People dream. And it’s all manner of dreams. Some dreams are sumptuously sweet. Some are sorrily sour. Like every young person, I, too, dreamed. Some of the dreams we dream may be lofty; others may be lousy. The lofty and lousy dreams were mostly products of our youthful thinking and infantile imaginations. Philosophers call much of the dreams daydreaming.
In our days as young people, we dreamed about building wealth and leaving ostentatious marks on our paths. We dreamed about conquering the world and counter-colonising our British colonial masters. We believed that our generation would be the first to take Nigeria to the moon and onto all imaginable galaxies. We kept dreaming until a certain age, when we inevitably stumbled upon the illuminator called reality. No matter how deep and sweet a dream is, one day, we will wake up into reality or be consumed by the accompanying nightmare fanned by fantasy. At a point in your dreaming odyssey, it is wise to sit back, fasten your seat belt, discard your abecedarian attitudes, and go back to your individual armoury to prepare for a fight against the army of reality.
Reality is a factor that determines whether a dream comes true or remains cocooned in the cubicle of mere wishy-washy wishes. There is no better fashion to acquire the experiential knowledge of a situation until it is kick-started by REALITY. Experience is a natural phenomenon that confirms the reality of a situation. Reality is truth, not falsity. It is a fact, not a fantasy. You can run as fast as you can from it, but reality will always track you down on your fruitless trip to the la-la land of illusion. Reality is faster than the speed of light and has more velocity than high-speed internet technology. It has too much celerity that science has not yet been able to catch up with. Its effigy has the breath of life that desires, and determinations have not been able to obliterate. My friends, in all your dreams, face reality.
Many of the dreams we had as young people in my days growing up in Nigeria were not outrightly outlandish. Similar dreams have been attained in other climes where the weather was commodious and the environment was sane. The reality we failed to grapple with was that our own environment needed a lot of work to nurture a dream to fruition. The Nigerian environment worked mostly for the crooked and the connected. Many who have become men who matter in our environment must first have known men who matter. It is widely believed that serendipity and synchronicity may have pulled a few people up through the suffocating manhole of backwardness. Many also think it takes the Grace of God to be taken out of poverty. For the dreams we dreamed, we needed to prepare for the harshness of the environment. That was the reality that I missed as a young man. People who don’t face reality often fail to prepare for what reality teaches.
Friends, there is enormous power in preparation. If you are not prepared for tomorrow, your life will be impaired today. Only the prepared win life’s battle. Power and wealth will not be handed over to you just because you make noise or throw blame at somebody who didn’t help you. Good things in life will not come to you of their own accord if you aren’t prepared.
If you want to stand tall among your peers, get the necessary education and skills. I am not referring to a mundane rigmarole through school; that’s what many Nigerian young people do these days. They ‘pass’ exams somebody else sat for and acquire certificates they bribed their way to receiving. This is not education. It is fraud. Whatever is acquired through fraud only builds a dream on quicksand. But whatever is acquired in the womb of legitimacy and authenticity builds a solid-rock dream that stands the test of time.
True education can be strictly a pursuit of technical knowledge or largely academic know-how. Real education is a deft acquisition of knowledge in a chosen field where a price is paid to win the prize. Life does not give you what you deserve; it gives you what you prepare for. In all you dream, face reality.
The work that I do has connected me to thousands of young people all over the world as I speak to them in diverse fora. They are of different races and nationalities. They are passionate and relentless in pursuit of success. Many of them know where and what they desire in life, but don’t know how to achieve their dream. I identify with them. As a young man, I once lived in the world they live in. The question that I often ask them when our paths cross is what I ask is if they are ready to face reality.
Not every young man or woman wants to swing into the murky waters of politics. Not everybody wants to be president. But everybody wants to succeed; nobody wants to be a failure. The overarching question I thus ask is: Are you ready to succeed? There may be a young man or woman somewhere in the nook and cranny of Nigeria with a very powerful dream reading this article on this day. You yearn to lead something and impact your community. What a lofty yearning! But are you prepared for that journey that will take you through bends and straight roads? Are you prepared for the ups and downs, twists and turns, and crinkum-crankums that come with the terrain that succeed?
I salute your desire, but a desire is only a heart attraction to something or somewhere. Every move in life begins with it, but dreams are not realised only through desires. If you are wise, you must know that every desire, no matter how lofty and good, must be followed by action. And the action must carry reality on its missile head. The precedence to any action is preparation. Mission and vision are accomplished only when you prepare for them. I conclude this treatise this week, admonishing my readers to continue to dream. Dream big dreams. Dream lofty dreams. But in all your dreams, don’t forget to face reality.
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