You probably had the glimmer of a dream when you were a
youngster, but this was soon knocked out of you. Your
parents undoubtedly called your dream unrealistic.
Then, to the sound of a points-lever being pulled, they
suggested to you that you get a 'practical' education
in order that you might follow your dream at a later
date. I am not implying any malevolence here, you need
to remember that your parents, and all preceding
generations did not have the luxury of fancy life
planning.
  
The name of their game was survival. To survive you
needed money. To get money you needed a good job. To
get a good job you needed a good education. They pulled
those levers on you for the best of intentions, but the
result was a disaster for your fledgling ambitions.
  
This message was reinforced by teachers, friends and
careers advisers, until by the time you left full-time
education you were almost certainly way off the main
line and heading fast down some insignificant branch
line.
  
Throughout these years, you learned the trick of
suppressing your dream. You simply could not maintain
this dream in the face of such ordered opposition and
so you buried it in a secret place within you.
  
Then the pace of life started really to heat up, and
problems started to come at you like a pack of hungry
jackals. No time for fancy, childish dreams now. All of
your energies were involved, and probably still are
involved, in fighting off the pack of slavering dogs.
Dreams are... well, for dreamers. There is a life to be
lived, food to put on the table, a mortgage to be paid
and other people to worry about.
  
If you even remember your dream, you probably fool
yourself into thinking you'll pick it up later, when
the family has grown up, when you are retired. Some
time. The tragedy here is that most people's dreams
become so deeply buried they not only forget what they
are, but even forget that they had a dream in the first
place. Certainly, few people can put a name to their
dream. Instead, they sit in the sidings, rusting away,
perhaps (if this is not pushing the railway analogy too
far) hoping that some bright, gleaming locomotive will
arrive one day to pull them to safety.
  
Is it any wonder that they are depressed?
  
I want to make another important observation at this
point.
  
To be fair, I do not think that we are well equipped to
get in contact with our dreams and to plan a
glittering, fulfilling and exciting life for ourselves.
Man has only existed for around one million years,
perhaps two million at the absolute maximum. For 99.9%
of that time, we lived short, brutish lives which were
wholly obsessed with creating sufficient food, water
and shelter for our basic survival. Few people lived
beyond 35 years old. I strongly suspect that life
planning was not an issue which occupied the thoughts
of men and women prior to a few hundred years ago.
  
Even the wealthy had few choices. The son of a rich
family joined the army, became a priest, or took over
the running of the family business. In general, he was
not full of angst regarding his special purpose on the
planet. Such thinking is a luxury, brought about by
material wealth and the increase in health and hygiene.
We live longer. We are all richer. We have the luxury
of being able to consider our true purpose and we have
the leisure time to be unhappy if we do not fulfill
that purpose.