
The Things That Stop You Dreaming
Every once in a while I think about how my life went, whether I’m on the path that I chose or not. It always seems to happen a couple of weeks before my birthday. My birthday, The day that will mark 21 years of me on this planet, is just a couple of weeks ahead.
Used to be that I lock myself in an empty room, not speak to anyone but myself for the last one week before my birthday, you know…try to figure out who I am when no one is watching. Reflect on the year that went by…my accomplishments, if any, and my failures, and try to be a better me for the coming age.
I can’t do that anymore, my woman thinks that its bordering on insanity to do such a thing. I thought I should write instead.
I’m turning 21, in any country I’d be considered an adult. But these days I question every adult to being an adult. I feel I’m very mature for my age. Facing so many problems while still young tends to buck you up a little, you know? I mean in the past 4 years of my life I have seen loss, grief, instability, and ego shattering failure. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I did some pretty cool stuff too. I got the woman of my dreams. That’s my biggest accomplishment and through that my life has gained a bit of…clarity, if you will. The right woman tends to make you differentiate what is worth your time and efforts, and what you should leave behind. The right woman also tends to make all the noise in your life drown out. All the sad shit tends to be weightless when she tells you that it will be okay, it will pass.
The biggest lesson I learned though, the reason I called this article “ the things that stop you dreaming” came in my econometrics class. They call it the “error term”. Its got its own formula and shit but the basic idea is this: when ever you try to formulate a model, you have to take into account everything that you didn’t consider in the model by one variable, called the error term. I tried to simplify it as much as I could…mainly because I’m not trying to give an econometrics class here, I’m just trying to explain what I learned from that. When ever we make plans, we think that everything will go according to plan. But we forget the error term.
Take making a plan for the next day in your bed before you sleep for instance. You say…I’ll wake up, get ready and go out…maybe have some coffee and read a little on medium. Next day you wake up, if u don’t die in your sleep I mean, and its raining cats and dogs, you go to the coffee place and their power went out and so they can’t make you coffee, you forgot to charge your phone so you can’t read anything. So much for planning, right? That’s what I mean when I say the error term.
Never to make an end to end plan without accounting for the error term is the biggest lesson I learned at 20. I never dream too much, because I know that in the end, the stars have to align perfectly for my dreams to come true. The error term, the things you don’t take into account when you make plans, and the knowledge of it, are the things that stop you dreaming.
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Thanks for reading.
