On Dreaming and Living.

I love the feeling of cold grass underneath my feet.

“Dream but don’t forget to live, then you might end up living your dream.” –Author Unknown.

Writing this post for one of my mates back home who’s going through a rough patch recently. We’re from the same batch and team when we were younger and made a pact that someday we’ll make it to the Olympics.

You see when I was younger, I had all these wonderful big dreams. Dreams that someday when I grew up, I’m going to do this and I’m going to be that.

And then I found myself suddenly all grown up and things didn’t exactly turn out the way I’d thought it would be. Years started to whiz by and you realise with every passing moment the sight of those dreams are constantly fading.

To be honest with you, when I first decided to come overseas to train and study, I planned that within 3 years I would get good enough at the sport that I could get sponsored and go professional for a year to train for the 2012 Olympics.

Things never do go according to plan and if you’ve been following my blog you’ll see that it has been a constant daily struggle. You get your good days and you get your bad days, but you get through them anyway.

It’s the end of that 3 years now and after a steady battle with injuries, incompetence and inexperience, I’m nowhere close to where I wanted I’d be.

I found out like so many others, that the world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows…

…but I learnt to smile in the rain, take the hits, stand up and keep on going.

All these small daily struggles, leading up to the big moments that you train for, are usually the ones I find most difficult to get through. It’s never ending and there’s always things to overcome, things that go wrongly and things that get in your way.

I always thought that living the dream is about living in that moment when everything comes together and work out the way you wanted it to be, but then I realised through the years, it actually is the journey that makes the dream worthy. Because the destination will just be but a fleeting moment before your eyes, and it is the everlasting journey where you spend the most of your life in.

“For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin – real life.  But there was always some obstacle in the way.  Something to be got through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid.  Then life would begin.  At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.”  -Fr. Alfred D’Souza

Was at the track a few days ago and thought about how much I enjoyed all the small little things every day. From saying hello to all my wonderful friends that I’ve made along the way, to running barefoot on the field and feeling the cold grass in-between my toes. All these experiences that I would not have had if not for my decision to chase my dreams back then.

So don’t give up my friend and don’t let it keep you down too long either. Remember why you’re still running, why you enjoy running and why we still keep chasing our dreams. But most importantly, appreciate and enjoy today with all its struggles and imperfections, for all we know, we might not get tomorrow…

Grab somebody sexy tell them hey… 😉

Next decathlon in just 5 days now. Have a good week ahead!