The way to my dream

I walked a long way to find my dream.

When I was a little girl, I always felt lonely. Rather than playing with others, I liked walking to an unknown destination alone to discover something different. At that time, I didn't have my own dream and no direction at all. But I still believed that there must be something waiting for me in the future. So, although sometimes I was so depressed and even attempted to suicide, this belief gave me courage to go on.

In my whole teenagers and earlier twenties, I was still groping in the dark and didn't know who I was and what I wanted to be. I knew nothing about my major before I went to college, knew nothing about my first job until I were there. All things had just happened and seemed wrong to me. I was distressed and complained all day.

The situation changed when I met the spiritual part of my life. One of my best friends coached me to "balance cycles" and the whole life spread out slowly like a scroll painting in front of me at the first time. Since that great moment, my journal to find myself began. I attended some courses and workshops in the psychology field and finally got to know that all the difficult moments are present from the destiny to teach me. Nothing can help you except yourself. Happiness is a state of mind and it's not something you can find outside but inside yourself. The power to change is in your own hand and everyone has enough capabilities to take charge of one's own life.

I finally encountered my dream in a workshop. When I was required to imagine what I will be doing after 10 years, the imagine that I was working and helping others in my own office came to mind suddenly. And my values also settled as Love, Joy and Inner Peace. After that workshop, I kept this dream in mind. The feeling that I had a dream comforted me when I met problems, but the dream was just a dream and looked still far away from my daily life. I thought about it less then 3 times in more than 3 years and didn't know when, where, how, who to achieve my dream with.

I must show my great gratitude to Coursera's CIC course. I'm attending it because I have interest in creativity, but the course has changed my mind in a deep way. The "Life Ring" exercise recalled the memory of my dream, the "Ventures" exercise let me being committed to my dream. On the12th of Sep, a day to remember, I finally decided to start my project : Focus on your dream 10 minutes per day, and I posted it in the course's forum. I had never imagined that this project could  help to focus on my dream not only myself but also other people.

Here, I got a lot of amazing ideas. With Dawn Lagunas's suggestion, I reviewed my values and turned them into Love, Being Positive, Active, Supporting others and Inner Peace. With Alessandra Lacaita and Arnoldo Del Toro's great help, we even made a blog for dreamers to tell their stories. The great stories of Emili Bermudez, Francois Brillon and Freen also inspired me and enhanced my confidence. I took so many actions in only 21 days and realized how powerful the actions are. I never felt as energized, confident and enthusiastic as these days in my whole life.

I am still on the way to accomplish my dream and I would like to call myself a WALKER of life. Of course I want to achieve success in one day, but the way itself is beautiful enough to learn, share, enjoy and to deeply communicate with myself.

Let's keep going on to dreams together! Thanks you all!

Lucy Cao