When I sit in class I have a tendency of writing along the margins of my notes. It helps me focus on the lesson and keep from being swept away in my own thoughts. I doodle awful pictures (artistry isn’t my thing), and I jot down song lyrics that come to mind. I also jot down little lines I come up with. One of my more commonly-written ones is “dreams die by morning”.

Now I know that it sounds cynical- maybe it is. I don’t know why, but I just don’t see a place for dreams in waking life. It distracts from reality. I used to sit in class and daydream all the time. I would pick an event and imagine, or re-imagine, how it plays out. I would end up not learning anything that day because I was too busy re-imagining the way something had already played out. It was worthless. After a while, I realized that there was no point in dreams. There was no point in creating fantasies in my head that would never come true. They only lead to disappointment.

At this point, I’m sure that a lot of people have a lot to say in argument against what I just said. Before you begin typing up those comments, let me clarify something. I do not believe that having hopes and goals is wrong. I think that they are some of the most important things about life. They drive us to do incredible things. They give us a reason to keep pushing to do better. For some, they give us a reason just to keep living. These are the things that I do not mind envisioning. They’re different from dreams. To me, dreams are the things that we imagine in our heads even though they will never play out. They’re what we wish our world could be replaced with because we don’t like how it’s turned out. Goals are what we aim for in our future. They’re what we strive towards in order to create a life of which dreams are made. Goals are concrete; we can reach for them and grab a hold of them once we reach them. Dreams are just made of wisps of clouds that dissolve when we try to hold on to them.

So, here’s my advice: don’t ever stop hoping for a better future. Set a goal and run towards it as hard as you can. Once you get there take a look around. You’ll realize that maybe it’s what your dreams were made of. Then recognize that if you had spent life dreaming, instead of working towards a goal, you would never have gotten there. I don’t dream for my future- I set goals for it. So, for those of you who consider dreaming to be the same as setting a goal and working towards it, then keep dreaming. For those of you who use it to escape reality, take a look around and examine how your life is. Is daydreaming really changing anything? Is your fantasy life ever going to become reality if you don’t work towards it? Never stop looking forward to a better life- just remember to work for it at the same time.