Stand below a tree. A fruit tree to be precise. Go on, try it. Let’s specify it further. Stand below a mango tree, since that’s the obvious season. As you look up and enjoy the vast coolness encompassing you, a fruit catches your eye. A nice, juicy mango…atop that branch which is tantalisingly out of reach.
And that’s it. Your mind is made up. No other fruit is going to taste sweeter than that one mango which has caught your fancy. And you want it, no matter how!!
You do the obvious. Pick up a stone and aim. Sometimes it hits the target, but the fruit is adamant. You need to work harder if the fruit’s to be yours. At other times, the stone simply misses. Hurt never brought anything good.
Shake the tree hard, hoping the mango will bounce off. Once a while it does. But the fruit is squished, the height proving fatal. Leave it hanging on the tree and you’re sure a bird will get it before you do. The winner takes it all…always! Ignore it and the fruit will rot there…..fresh in your memory but reeking in reality. A natural death is what it will meet, if not claimed for.
You know that for sure. Because no one will ever love that fruit like the way you did……
It’s the same with dreams. A seed is planted and the dream begins to take root. It grows as you nurture it, with love and care and affection. With stars shining bright in your eyes. The dream grows and grows, taking captive your heart and mind. It is a part of you now and you cannot rest until it’s fulfilled. But it’s tough to wait for that dream to reach it’s ‘ripe’ stage.
And so you do the obvious. Poke it and hurt it and will it to fall into place. Sometimes it might, but obstacles will crowd your path nevertheless. No one get’s it easy. It’s a law of nature. You need to fight, if you want your dream for yourself.
Shake it and hope it will fall. Die a natural death. But you know the dream will haunt you for ever. In the form of Regret. And that is the worst rotting a dream can undergo.
Work towards it, and one day…the ‘fruits’ of labour will be sweet.
The forbidden fruit shall be yours…and yours alone.
Because no one can love it better than you….!