Why I Don’t Dream Anymore — I Plan
At some point, dreaming felt reckless. Planning felt manageable.
I know it’s been a while — college has a way of swallowing time whole. But today, I want to talk about dreams.
A. P. J. Abdul Kalam said, “Dream, dream, dream.”
I say that the people who dream are the luckiest of all…
I envy children who say things like, “I’m going to be an astronaut,” or “I’ll build a fighter jet,” or the worst, “I’m going to be Iron Man.” At some point, dreams stopped sounding ambitious and started sounding irresponsible. When did dreaming start to feel so far-fetched?
When we were younger, nothing felt impossible. Fairies, witches, genies — they all existed as easily as gravity. Now they’ve been reduced to escapism, to delusion. We don’t dream anymore. And even when we think we do, it’s a fantasy, not a dream.
What if they fail? What if they don’t work out?
Once, dreaming was enough. Now even dreams need a safety net. They need backup plans, acceptable outcomes, and exit strategies — just enough hope to keep going, but not enough to hurt if it collapses.
Maybe it was my parents’ dream. Maybe my teachers’. For me, it was a plan — segmented, timed, optimised. A plan that didn’t always execute the way it was supposed to, but a plan nonetheless. Because dreams are unstable. They shimmer like mirages. Or maybe that’s just what we call them when we’re too afraid to want them honestly.
We’ve forgotten how to dream. Now, the only “dreams” we have are fantasies, the ones we see with our eyes open, and delusion, the ones we give up on after scrolling Instagram for an hour. Dreams were supposed to be propulsion — the thing that kept you restless until you reached them. Now they’re reduced to strange films our brains play during REM sleep.
Dreams demand obsession, passion, attention, and pleasure.
Obsession to keep you fixated.
Passion to keep you moving.
Attention to keep you sharp.
Pleasure to keep you from quitting.
But where is the space for that now?
Dreams need time. They need risk. And in a world where 17-year-olds are already worrying about supporting themselves a decade from now, who has either? Stability becomes the priority at 17 — and life quietly loses the race. Living loses the race.
We plan our dreams. Then we plan around those plans. And somewhere along the way, living slips to second place — or last. For some of us, it doesn’t even make the list. The only comfort we give ourselves is the promise that one day we’ll have time to live, to feel, to do more than just exist.
But somewhere, deep down, I know the truth.
The world never becomes safe enough for dreams.
If I want to dream again, I won’t need time — I’ll need courage.
So to those who can still dream freely: I envy you more than anything.
And to those who understood every word of this — I’m sorry for your loss.
But the time will never come.
If you want to dream, you have to gather courage — not wait for permission.
