Dreams are like cars

Dreams need constant fuelling if they're going to be kept alive, don't they? That's why so many New Year's Resolutions fail the moment they're broken the first time ... normally somewhere around January 3. Luckily for me, I resolved to move to Romania with my wife in December last year, so I'm immune from that particular danger.

My greatest risk is rather how do I keep the dream alive, as it risks being pushed to the background of my life's current day-to-day troubles and mini-goals? I always knew that I wasn't in a position to just drop everything, buy a ticket to Romania and hop onto the next departing plane - adult life tends to get in the way of impetuous behaviour, doesn't it? - but knowing something and facing the reality are altogether different.

So here we are, January 4. My few contacts in Romania are giving me mixed signals, but I think I've got a fair enough picture of life on the ground in the big R. I've exhausted Wikipedia, other Blogspot blogs, Romania's few English news sources and whatever else Google has managed to scoop up for me ... and now I'm just waiting. Waiting for money to fall into my lap, waiting for contractual obligations to end, waiting for an e-mail with a job offer too good to refuse ... and while I wait, I continue living.

It makes me think of that Adam Sandler movie, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0389860/. I'm normally not a big Sandler fan, but the concept and ending of this movie was extremely thought-provoking for me. In it, Sandler's character has a remote which allows him to fast-forward his life to the various defining moments he is hoping for: a big promotion, a relationship milestone etc. In my case, emigrating.

Without ruining the movie too much for those of you who haven't watched it, Sandler's big lesson is that if you fast-forward your life to the moments you think are going to be the highlights, you A: miss out on all the detail that gets you there, and B: don't always get what you expect in the end.

I guess, then, that the challenge I'm facing is to have my dreams and my current life parked side-by-side like cars, and to drive them successfully at the same speed down the road. This is a relevant simile, because if one of the 'cars' drives too fast or takes a de-tour, it will leave the other car behind and ultimately result in a crash or injury to myself as the driver.

Also, I have to note that the petrol price in South Africa is expected to rise yet again this year. Lovely. Drive two cars side-by-side, split my attention between them and keep both from running on empty ... sounds like a challenge to me.

Where's that coffee? And what are *your* views?