Die with your memories, Not dreams – Part II

In my last blog, I had shared my Professional dream/ambition with you all. I have got mixed responses from you all. Some agreed with the thoughts some conveyed their discontents. Perfectly fine with opposite views/opinions as that was the idea to share my experience and hear, understand & learn the other side of the views and correct myself wherever I am wrong. Today I am sharing my personal dreams/bucket list/wish list with you all.  

Now coming to my personal bucket list. I had and perhaps I am still having a long wish list. Starting from my initial days, being from a very lower-middle-class family, had dreams of having my own house, a car, going on overseas vacation with family, learning a musical instrument, traveling by road to explore India, wanted my kids to study overseas, write a book, teach…. list is long. As I grew in my profession and also older, my wish list continued to expand and also refined to an extent.

It’s a saying that whatever you plan, but things happen only as per God’s wishes. God also tests your efforts and willingness to fulfill your dreams under challenging circumstances. I can say that I could tick the majority of my wish list (though my bucket list always got expanded with time) but one thing which was very close to my heart, travel by road and exploring India, got a kind of setback due to first my own health and secondly due to high demanding job. I am suffering from slip disc since I was 34, which at times restricts my long driving which I enjoy the most.  Though love and passion for driving have taken me to places that I had never dreamed of.  Second, came the pandemic in 2020. Entire India was under lockdown and hence could not follow my passion for driving. Despite lower back health constraints, around five years back did one breath-taking road trip along with my soulmate from Mumbai to Leh Ladakh. More than 2,500 Kms one-way journey, without any preplanning or booking. Wow, what a journey that was! Created a lifetime memory with that expedition. Will share with you all the thrills of that journey sometime soon.

When I read somewhere this sentence – “die with memories, not dreams” has pushed me to attempt more things. Those experiences and memories created while on that journey, to accomplish are invaluable. With that motivation, at the age of 53 years, learning photography from my daughter and started writing blogs with the help of kids.  Despite all physical health constraints and now added challenges of being diagnosed with Glaucoma in both eyes, my passion to do road trips or clicking the photos with a 2 kg lens and sitting & editing the photographs in front of the screen for long hours has not died at all. These memories are nothing but all the experience which we gain while fulfilling our dreams and all these experiences teach us the life lessons which no other books or wise man can impart.

At this age with all the challenges, still want to learn to ride bikes and also construct/open a library or to say “Temple of Knowledge & Wisdom” where people from all strata, can come, read the books and exchange their knowledge and wisdom. In a true sense want to create a culture and place for आ नो भद्रा: क्रतवो यन्तु विश्वत:| (Let noble thoughts come to us from every side). Maybe if you meet me or ask me after a couple of years, my wish list would have grown further or would have refined and be nobler than personal.

You would be wondering why I am sharing all these things with you? What is the relevance? Whether one has a bucket list or not, how does it matter? Not everyone can fulfill their dreams. At times a person is more disappointed if he/she is not able to fulfill his / her dreams. I strongly feel that everyone should die with their memories and not their dreams. Need to make all legitimate and wholehearted efforts to fulfill those dreams, be it in a professional career or personal. We all have only one life and the sentence which has always inspired and simultaneously scared me a lot is – what I am doing today is most important because I am exchanging a day of my life for it.

We never know, with passing years and as we grow older, what kind of personal, family, or professional circumstances or medical exigency or financial constraint would restrict us to fulfill our bucket list. All those dreams, ambitions, aspirations should never be put on the back burner or postponed. The experience of trying out to achieve those ambitions, fulfilling those dreams is priceless. 

Hence do your every bit and all efforts to tick those boxes as soon as you can without any deferment or postponement. This bucket list has kept my fire in the belly alive all the while. We know we will never be able to fulfill all our dreams but that does not mean that we stop dreaming.

Have you made your bucket list? What are you doing to tick those boxes? Start one step in that direction now, today itself, before it is too late. Those dreams, ambitions, wish lists, bucket lists, and aspirations would always pump energy in you and keep you motivated whenever you feel low in your life and will inspire you to get up and take the next step whenever you feel stagnant or stuck. What are your thoughts? Would love to hear from you all.