Tag Archives: Westlife

Dreams can come true

Or at least that’s what the guy serving me coffee this morning informed me as he sang along with Westlife on the radio.

I don’t think he was prepared for my response* – Poor bastard caught me in a muse mood.

‘No, they probably won’t’  I said as I fished for £2.65 worth of shrapnel, ‘and, if you wish to be truly happy,  it’s not necessary that they do anyway… Surely our dreams (I assume Westlife are referring to day dreams) actually prevent us from focussing on what is actually going on in front of us, right now, from focussing on what is, rather than what could be; and it is our day dreams, too often based on unrealistic notions of what is actually possible, that make us miserable.

I say this because, in reality, what we have got here in front us, right now, isn’t actually that bad at all, and that there is nothing inherent in our typical day to day to lives that should make us miserable. Here we are, two people, both working or on their way to work, amidst a couple of hundred other people in a similar situation, and there is nothing inherently bad about this station, or this day. We are not starving, we are not in a war zone, we are not being persecuted – We are all well fed, housed, clothed, have access to a wondrous array of social services and huge consumer choice, and yet look around at how many people around us appear distracted or just down right miserable.

‘So why is it’, I continued, coffee and silly little biscuit now firmly in hand ‘that so many people are miserable? Could it be that they compare their perfectly adequate lives to unrealistic and unattainable media manufactured fantasies, day dreams if you like, and as a result feel unsatisfied with what actually is? Could it be that these fantasies, these dreams, these unreal figments of the mind, are actually responsible for making people miserable in their day to day to lives?

I would suggest, that instead of hoping that ‘our dreams come true’, we just give up on Westlife, give up on the mainstream media, and give up on their (not our) dreams and just simply focus on what is – Instead of dreaming, just be happy.’

Oddly enough he didn’t really seem up for responding, so I just closed with ‘Thanks for the coffee, have a nice day’ – and I really, really meant it!

 

The lyrics to ‘dreams can come true are here – This is probably one of the worst pop songs of all time – This is objective truth – check it out for yourselves – Here – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nS6bt-_KO7w

*OK – Some of this conversation, I may have just had with myself in retrospect, but what’s a little unreality in the age of post modernity?