No Longer Waiting!

Work at a marketing company; Get a doctoral degree through a scholarship program; Establish my first company; Settling down with the woman of my dreams and start a family of 4, 5, or maybe 6 (7?) if she's up to it; Buy my dad a brand new E-class; Go on my first vacation with the whole family; Continue living. Those were my dreams. Not anymore it ain't. Now those are my game-plan. My future to-be. My goals.

There comes a time in your life when you can't wait anymore for your dreams to happen. For me, that time is now. Or rather, yesterday. I spent the weekend in Bandung with my parents to visit my grandma. She has this long shelf in the living room full of pictures of her family. At the end of the shelf, there's this picture of me and my family, taken almost 20 years ago. I was still scrawny back then (not the subject of this post, but it's damn fun to write it down). Mom was still slender and dad still has his hair (again, not the subject of this post, but still damn fun!). Anyways, I saw something in his eyes in that old family photo. I saw content, and more than that, I saw pride. Pride for his achievements, pride for his work, pride for his family, even pride for his scrawny 7 year old son who was handsome as hell even back then. *LOL*

Incidentally, I also had a conversation that morning with the old man about my future. Usually it was a very delicate matter for me as it involves my perpetually problematic thesis (1.5 years and still going strong, bloody Hell!!!) but I was in a good mood yesterday, so I decided to humor him. For the billionth time, he asked me about what I wanted to be after I graduate. And for the billionth time, I told him about moving from pure economics (never my cup of tea, mind you, taking pure economics was the biggest blunder of my life) to marketing. And maybe owning my own marketing research company sometime in the future, as well as my very own advertising / design studio. Once again he told me about his life, how he made it from scratch. Oddly enough, though I've memorized his words at the back of my head, that time I really listened.

He told me that I have to make out a plan, a real plan for the future. Not just dreams, no. Everyone has dreams, but not everyone work out a plan to reach for those dream. His words must've struck a chord somewhere in that encephalon of mine, cos I've decided to put my feet down then and there. Enough dreaming! Now is the time to build my stairway and reach for the heavens (intended to be read while listening to Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven") I want to be content in my family picture. I want my son to see the pride in my eyes. So, I'll work for it, even if I have to move heaven and earth. Anyone coming with me?