We all dream

The Fremen were supreme in that quality the ancients called "spannungsbogen" -- which is the self-imposed delay between desire for a thing and the act of reaching out to grasp that thing. from "The Wisdom of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan.
-- (Dune, Frank Herbert)

It's true that ability to stop and think before doing something requires great discipline, especially if the end result would normally be something that is irreversible and a thing that you would need to live with. To those who 'live and let live' the above probably don't matter as life is one to paint and a painting to look back at, good or bad. At least one get to lived his life the way he wanted it.

For most people however, the need to do decide on whether a venture is worth the risk is often a dilemma of great proportions especially if it meant something very costly or one that would change how you live for a long time, if not forever. Take for instance the decision to buy a house - choose the wrong location or pricing and you'll end up financing a long term loan that will eat up your life's worth of worries. Abandoning it to make amends will eat up all that has been invested practically rendering it a waste.

Even a thing as natural as having children is not a bed of roses (though the process of making them are often decided in seconds... that's for another story) - the whole process of investing half of your life to make sure that this new bundle of life get to grow in a decent environment with the proper upbringing is not as simple as say, adding cheese to make a cheese cake. Unlike programs, the older they are they less they tell you and whether they end up like what you hoped to be will ultimately be out of your hands simply because they have free will.

'Without hope a man is but an animal', says the Koran and I agree.

A deer is happy enough to prance around the woods, eat berries and soft leaves off shrubs for the rest of its life without knowing if its defaecating will bring a richer growth in the future. They don't stop to feel the rain and think of all the greenery that will result from the downpour of heaven's waters, or the newer sweeter fruit that grew along the stream.

We all dream of better things in the future for without it there is no will to live.

There was an article I read many years ago regarding the causes of death amongst people on earth. It said 'one of the biggest killers of people are retirement'. When they stop working, they don't know what to do with the rest of their lives. The reason to wake up in the morning to get to work, to fix that pipe, to write the purchase order, to operate that forklift, to draw the design diagram - disappears.

Of course as morbid as it sounds, hope can be about many things. My dad is a retired civil servant whom had served his country loyally for 35 years. He has nothing much to do nowadays except to tend to his little garden at the extended porch of the house and the backyard. I hope to God that he lives a long and healthy life with my mother, I'd imagine he's hoping to see my brother and I establish a family of our own like when he did over four decades ago, to help guide us through the difficult learning curves of becoming the head of your own family.

That is his hope.

What about mine?