My Dreams

A few weeks ago, I took a seminar in which we discussed the ideas of John Kekes in his book, "The Examined Life". One of the main questions our moderator asked us was what do we want our contribution to the world to be. When I was supposed to answer to that question, I couldn’t answer it. I did say something about improving the public functioning of my country, but the truth was that I didn’t know yet what could be a contribution worth pursuing my whole life. I understand a bit more now about what must be our contribution to the world or the mission of our life.

Wolfgang von Goethe once said: “Love and desire are the spirit’s wings to great deeds.” The reason I couldn’t answer to that question was because what I want to do in my life is to accomplish as many of my dreams and goals as I can, and in the process of fulfilling my own dreams, I’m sure there would be a lot of positive externalities to the people around me and to the world in general. As I interpret Goethe’s quote, our capacity to accomplish what we want comes within us and not from any external cause. So, I could say I want to become a successful entrepreneur, the president of Guatemala, read and discuss as many books as I can, and also write some too, have a beautiful family, and retire at an early age; which is true in all of these cases, but everything one does is in order to live happier every day. I don’t know yet if these things would make me happier than I was before accomplishing them. I think and hope it will, but that I will only be able to see by pursuing my goals honestly. I dream that when I’ll be old, I could see back in my life and have no regrets of what I’ve done. I dream of being happy and satisfied of what I have achieved and be able to say that if I have to live once again, I wouldn’t change anything.