Lovely morning. Sometimes I read articles on the internet that say that today’s young people don’t have dreams or greed or desire, but is that really true? Whenever I read such an article, I feel that the person who wrote the article is only looking at it from the frame of his or her own values. The person who wrote the article may have dreamed of owning a branded bag, or a big house. Or maybe it was to have a cool car. The person may have assumed that having lots of material things is everyone’s dream.
But people’s values are different from person to person. Thinking that someone is not happy because they don’t have the same values as you feels like a dreamless way of thinking. I have come across such essays when I was teaching English exam questions. It was very interesting to read about how people feel happier when they pay for things like bags and cars, or when they pay for experiences like travel, and how their thoughts change before and after.
Acquiring things can give you a temporary sense of satisfaction. But when there is a big disaster, or when you can’t go out freely like now, maybe you feel that what really fills your heart is not material things, but invisible things. Of course there are material things that are important to us. But that thing may be a gift from a loved one, or it may be something that comes with a wonderful experience or experience of your own.
How to fill your inner heart is different for everyone, but maybe it is to have a dream, or to have a small happiness with what you see in front of you. It doesn’t matter how glamorous the outside is, if your heart is not filled with happiness, you will feel empty. If you have wonderful things that you love, wonderful people that you love, and wonderful dreams in your heart, and you are working step by step to make them come true, then your heart will be full.
When I teach many students of different generations, I find that everyone has different dreams, and even those who say they don’t have any dreams actually have wonderful thoughts when they talk to me, and it really makes my heart happy to know that.
I appreciate that my job is to help them get closer to their dreams by learning and using English. I want to keep learning to do that, so I’m going to start flipping through my books this morning.