There are more than seven billion people in the world today, and out of those seven billion people, there are about 320 million Americans. There is one thing that every single one of those human beings has in common: a dream. In the United States, this is known as the American dream. Goals can vary, and every one is unique. Having a dream is great; it is what gets us through life. But if we ask people around us what their aspirations were earlier in their lives, they may have been different from what they are doing now. The thing is, people want to be something but only “kinda” want it. They give up because it is too hard, and they start to make excuses as to why they are not working towards their dreams anymore. If people want their dreams to become realities, they have to ask themselves, “How badly do we really want it?” I believe that we can match our ambitions, and to do so we must understand that we have to be risk takers and not have any fear of failure or success. We should not let another person’s opinion influence our realities. Ultimately, we must define our own personal values. I challenge us to do so; we must distinguish ourselves as a rare species.
The bottom line is nothing is going to be handed to us on a silver platter. And if it is, then it will never be as satisfying as when we battle through the hardships and earn things ourselves. When we finally do succeed, we must never be satisfied with ourselves.
We must strive to be the best and to stand out as individuals. The truth is that somebody else also wants what we want. Most, if not all, of the greatest athletes were risk takers. They failed over and over again until they finally succeeded. People who want a dream often feel overwhelmed and often believe that successful people such as Michael Jordan, Bill Gates or Albert Einstein were born to be successful, but again they fail to realize that these successful human beings are just like us. These idols were not born with a specific gene to be successful, they were not born great, they were not born better than us. Instead they had ambitions and they wanted to live those ambitions. Therefore, they went out, determined as ever, believing that they could do great things even if it seemed like life was holding them back. These successful people had nothing to lose; they knew the hardships and troubles they would face, and they knew the sacrifices they would have to make. These “superstars” wanted it badly because they did not want to settle and live the rest of their lives regretting not continuing to strive for success. We must promise ourselves that we will never let anybody stand in our way, that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is a crucial need to eliminate the losers and not to let anyone’s opinion keep us from living our dream. They are our lives, not theirs. People do not know us as well as we know ourselves.
I look at our world today and I see the same old things over and over again: lack of confidence and the pressure to be “normal.” We idolize people who are already successful and we try to be like them when we should take a better look at ourselves. We need to spend a little more time getting to know ourselves instead of others. But the fact of the matter is that there are people who are afraid of change.
People are so worried about their images that they would throw away their dreams just to be accepted by society. But truthfully, we all fail in life. It is normal to fail because when we fail, we open up the opportunity eventually succeed. We should not let the losers’ opinions determine our lives.
We must define our values in order to live our dreams. If any of us want to be successful in this world, then we have to show off our uniqueness. One must be true to himself, have confidence and not only act like a winner but be winner. We have to be our own leaders; we have to lead by example and action and if we do that, we will achieve our goals.
In order to establish personal values, we should identify the times when we were happiest, the times we were most proud and the times we were most fulfilled and satisfied. We must then determine our top values based on our experiences with happiness, pride and fulfillment. It is important to make sure our dream includeshappiness, pride and fulfillment.
Seven billion people in the world have dreams, but I believe that an average of nine out of 10 people will never reach their dreams. We can change that by believing that our dreams can be realities. We can change the way we act, the way we think and the way we see things. My dream is someday to play a snap of football in the National Football League. Ever since I was a little kid, I have been told that I am too small. I am not big enough. I am not fast enough. I do not have what it takes. I have pushed through those obstacles. They told me it was impossible but the word “possible” is in “impossible.” I prepare so no one can take my dream, no one can replace my mind, and no one can take my heart. To live your dream and stay there, sweat is necessary. I push the losers out of my life who criticize me and tell me that I cannot achieve my dream. I disregard the opinions of others, none of which will ever become my reality. I have so much pride, so much happiness and so much fulfillment playing football that I never want to stop playing. No challenge will get in my way. Life has hit me again and again, but I told life a long time ago that it can throw whatever it wants at me; it will not stop me. I want my dream that badly. I am willing to make sacrifices to live my dream. I want to make my parents proud. I want to make my school proud. I want to touch millions of people’s hearts and souls and I want to be my own unique person.
Let’s live out our dreams.