徐艺宁 浙江工业大学

                       To Strive While Keep Our Dreams Alive

Dream, it seems to be such a beautiful word, pure and passionate, like a carefully preserved land in our hearts, illuminating us in the darkness. While strive, well-known for its tears and blood, is a process filled with endless pressures, struggles, confusions and even contempt. But if you ask me this question, to dream or to strive, which will you choose? Honestly, I won’t answer you with those perfect theories of idealism, and recklessly say:” of course, to dream.” On the other hand, I’d rather be one of those plain men, and answer this question with humbleness and deliberation---to strive, but keep my dream alive.

In this fast-paced society, we are sometimes stifled with the endless tasks we have to tackle, thus people always draw an equal mark between striving in reality and giving up our beautiful dreams. However in my philosophy---to strive, or say to follow the formulas of living is a must for most of us. Because we are not the lucky dog endowed with high IQ which gives us the confidence to usher a brand-new way of life, we are not even brave enough to ignore the critics if we utterly deflect from the road others have paved for us previously. We are only human; we need to confront ourselves with those basic and torturing events in order to survive in the harsh reality.

But to strive in the harsh reality never means killing our dreams, for dreams can not only be our pursuit but also an inspiration that grants us virtues and insight. I still remember that impressive trip to Xi’an during my childhood which ignited my passion to be an archeologist. Soon I became very interested in those profound studies of past human society, and that’s my dream even till now. But I finally chose another future career which is more practical and suitable for me. However, this never means I’m putting an end to my dream; I still keep it everywhere, as Pearl Buck ever said –“If you want to understand today, you have to search yesterday.” I developed a habit of pursuing the essence of an event--- My dream bestowed on me an aspiration to seek the root of all the difficulties I’ve encountered. And I’m so proud to say even I’m striving in the reality, my dream is still alive.

Further more, in time we will find that dream is beautiful not only because we can chase after it with passion and perspiration, or realize it with joy and exhilaration, but because we can stop pursuing it for something we care about more but never forget this precious treasure. Between realizing our dreams and striving to buy houses, cars to make our parents, daughters and sons live a better life, most of us will choose the later, for this is the duty society imposes upon us, the duty requires us to strive, to sustain the pressure, then we will. But the duty can never deprive us of our rights to dream, to keep our dream, to keep a Pure Land in our hearts.

Ladies and gentlemen, nowadays, billions of people in the world have a dream that one day, there’ll be no earthquake, no tsunamis, no hungers, no sadness a in our dear planet, but in the meantime, we still have to face those hundreds of thousands of tragedies, sorrows and sufferings when we eventually find the only thing we can do is to strive, but still pray for the world with our dreams burning in our hearts. In a word, maybe we are just one of the mortal beings who are striving in the social trend, we should never feel shameful, our uniqueness is sparkling in every single day of our ordinary life, for while we are striving to perform our duties as an average human being of society, we can still keep our dreams alive.