Growing Old by Broken Dreams

Posted on February 8, 2004 23:50 PM EST

More than anything else, broken dreams mark the passing of our age. More than passing years, more than life's hard knocks, more than illnesses, it's dreams which break or which we give up on, that make us older. The end of such dreams, mark the end of a whole era in our life.

To understand what I mean, consider some of the dreams we had, which have now ended: dreams of being a superhero, dreams of being like a favorite celebrity star, dreams of some thrilling adventurous career.

When I was a kid, I dreamt of being Phantom. There must be other kids who dreamt of becoming Superman or Spiderman or whatever. Finally realizing that those are impossible characters and we will never be like them is one stage of growing up. From being little boys, we're suddenly bigger boys with that realization.

And then there's the stage of the celebrity dream: how many of us wanted to become a Tendulkar or an Aamir Khan or other such celebrity. For a long time we believe it's possible. Many of us carry this dream well into adolescence or even beyond, until one day the dream is just gone. The bravado - naive and thrilling at the same time - that we would indeed be like these high-profile stars goes away, marking the end of yet another stage in our life.

And of course, there is the dream career. A pilot, an actor, a professional sportsman, a detective, a spy... There are as many fantasy careers as there have been hero's roles in movies and books. For most of us, these fantasy careers disappear around the time we are becoming adults. More than reaching the age that is legally considered adulthood, it's the settling down for a realistic career that marks the real entrance into adulthood for most of us.

In my case, this entry into adulthood was not easy although my fantasy career hopes lasted less time than it must for most others. For a period of time that now seems to be little more than 2 years, I wanted to be a naval officer and when I couldn't make it, I thought my life was done for. It was a scary depressing period for an adolescent me to go through alone, and I even considered suicide. I am laughing at the memory as I type this, because now, the whole suicide idea over that sounds like a ridiculous joke. In retrospect, it's a good thing I did not get into the navy: my hippie heart might not have been the best fit in any disciplined bureaucratic defense force!

These are just 3 examples of such dreams, which make us older in giant steps. There are many more dreams, big and small, which make us older and older. Examples include accepting that we'll never buy that impractical, expensive sportscar we've been admiring, or we'll never marry that hot college queen/hero or model or even an out-of-our-league colleague at work. Being able to dream of these things, without bothering about the details of how we'll get them is the sign of youth. Realizing that we'll probably never get them is the unmistakable sign of growing old.

I had never thought of how giving up on dreams makes us grow so old all of a sudden, until last month. I was humming Ludacris's Stand Up song to myself during the morning dash to office. There's one line in the song which goes: Looking, smelling, feeling like a million bucks! I sang that line and all of a sudden realized that with my current career, the way it is playing out, I would never look, smell and feel like a million bucks in today's dollars terms. That felt like running into a wall and growing about 10 years older, while rushing to the office. I had always assumed I would be a "rich man", without defining exactly what being a "rich man" meant. But in my mind, it must have certainly meant more than a million bucks. And realizing I might never have that, was a sobering growth-spurt I wish I had not had. Especially not early in the morning on the way to work.

I have not given up on the "rich man" dream though. Just realized that continuing as I am now, won't get me there. That realization must be a good thing. Also, it was one of the Rockefeller's, I think, who said that you are not rich enough if you know exactly how much money you have. Since I don't know exactly how much money I have in a handful of bank accounts and investments, I am already rich by Rockefeller's standards! ;-)