Are you still able to dream?

There is a very pleasant aspect in teaching in schools: Carla and I come into contact to one of the most powerful of the human aspect, that is the capacity to dream. The younger the students are, the less obstacles they impose themselves in dreaming. While boys and girls grow, they seem to loose the power of imagining something of incredible, different, exciting for their life. We have a strong perception of this change among secondary schools and colleges, thanks to a simple exercise that we make during our lessons. We give each student a white leaf with a simple question at the top: what is your dream?

Results among pupils of secondary schools are full of fantasy, flamboyant desires of what they would like to become, to do and to have in their lives. Their older “colleagues”, instead, are only focused on what job they will try to obtain, what studies they will have to carry on to arrive there. And a lot of fear to not have a future at all.

Are we sure that this is just one of the results of the economic crisis? And of the continuous media coverage of 'bad' news?

The ability to dream, to have aspirations, to grow self ambition is something very important at every age. The human history is studded of downturns but what pools them is that they have been solved by the enterprising attitude of lots of people that did everything was possible (and, sometimes, also the impossible!) to pursue and achieve their dreams.

So, if we want that things change, the first step is to take a white leaf and write down what are our dreams. What we can do to let them come true. How many and what kind of obstacles we will have to overcome. What we would do if we would fail. It takes courage, honesty and responsability. But this is the only way to become “entrepreneurs of ourselves” and living a life that worth.