Impossible Dream

I strongly recommend that you find / discover / create a truly IMPOSSIBLE dream for yourself. Impossible (yes) but not improbable. An impossible dream is possible to pursue but impossible to realize and achieve. While an improbable dream does not have any probability therefore is not even a source of motivation.

 

My impossible dream took shape when at the age of 10 I climbed my first major Himalayan peak. And it was: to travel the world and climb every mountain. I was young, naïve, completely ignorant to the vast scale and impossibility of my dream. There’s no way on earth any human could climb every mountain in the world or travel the complete world. Achievable perhaps in a thousand life time, but absolutely impossible in one. Today at 57 I still have the same dream: to travel the world and climb every mountain. After all it was and is still an impossible dream so I will never achieve it in totality and this dream will last his life time for sure.

 

Whereas if I had dreamt at 10 of climbing the highest peak on Moon, it was not only impossible but also absolutely improbable. And after a while, when I would have grown wiser I would have deserted that dream since it was in short a so called ‘pipe’ dream. A dream that we only see for the sake of a dream. But we never pursue it; such dreams never motivate us to propel forward or to improve ourselves.

 

I had one such dream when I was in my teens: I wanted to date and marry Cindy Crawford. On human scale it seemed possible but at my scale it was totally improbable. So I never pursued it. Though I had her poster above my bed till I turned 16 and realized the futility of my dream and just gave up. It remained a pipe dream, to fantasize about and to smile once in a while and ponder ‘what, if…’ but then my Cindy Crawford dream did come true much later, even if only for one evening. When she was my date for couple of hours and we danced and cheek-pecked, hugged and generally cooed and wooed over chilled wooded Bordeaux. I just didn’t have the heart to propose her. I am sure she would have rejected my offer, plus I had no ring in my person. But then that is my story, my pipe dream. Let’s get back to the real world now.

 

My dream was impossible but not improbable, hence I pursued it wholeheartedly with the hope that though I will never achieve it in totality I would achieve it partially at least. And now after 46 years of climbing around the world, I have climbed more than 1000 peaks in all the seven continents. And have actually visited 191 countries out of the UN recognized 193 (except Pakistan and N Korea), of which I have climbed the country highest point in 174. Besides visiting many other nations and principalities that are not yet UN recognized, viz: Kosovo, Palestine, Vatican, North Cyprus, etc. And still my passion to travel and climb remains as strong and focused as ever.

 

That is the benefit of having an impossible yet probable dream. It never allows you to rest and keeps you motivated to keep on going because we can keep fulfilling such a dream yet never achieve it completely. If we have a dream that we achieve fully in a short time then we have to find another one for continued motivation in life. Which is what we most often do. We have a dream, we get excited, we pursue it, it becomes our focus, our reason to be, and one day we achieve it. Thereafter with all the euphoria of achievements, our life starts to subside, lose excitement, focus and motivation. It’s like getting married to your dream girl. Till marriage, honeymoon and maybe few months thereafter, you remain super charged up. But then ennui sets in, boredom, the routine and the lack of something new. Not that you would love your wife any less. But I hope you get my point.

 

So then we have to find another dream, to refocus, to get motivation again, and to find another goal. But above all such achievable dreams, if we have a super riding (impossible) one like mine, then that is a source of motivation, focus and excitement all your life, no matter what you achieve or you don’t.

 

Whereas an improbable dream, though seemingly possible, like my dream of marrying Cindy, doesn’t motivate us, or even excite us (perhaps only as a fantasy) and certainly doesn’t get us anywhere.

 

So my friends, young and old, tame and bold, men women and children gold, please try to find an impossible but probable dream. It is the key to a lifelong excitement, motivation and happiness.