During the 58th Jamhuri Day celebrations, President Uhuru Kenyatta alluded to a poem written to the African-American community years gone but still relevant in our Kenyan context.
A Dream Deferred by Langston Hughes expounds on what happens when a dream is delayed.
Upon independence from British rule, the founding fathers and mothers embarked on our national dream which is to eradicate poverty, ignorance and hunger.
To date, we are still living the dream.
To defer a dream is to postpone a life goal to a later date risking the misfortune of getting it obliterated from an individual’s life trajectory.
We can decipher lessons about what happens when life goals are put on the back burner.
The poet brings out an element of decay that is highly contagious.
Counsellors, parents and caregivers are engaged in futile efforts to keep away bad smells emanating from rotten dreams.
For instance, students join Form one with high ambitions and vibrancy enough to propel them to a sparkling career.
They are clear on what they want to become in life.
Sadly, only a handful of these youngsters hold on to these dreams to the end of four years.
The majority of them put off their life goals, a situation described by the poet as drying up, oozing of a wound or rotting like meat.
Subsequently, when dreams are abandoned they turn into a dead weight in an individual’s psychological axle.
When students put off a dream, they lose hope, self-drive and become destructive to themselves and others.
We have seen it in the form of strikes, burning dormitories or boycotts.
Most of the people engaged in vices like violence, arsonist activities, drug and substance abuse have a bearing on a dream deferred.
Students should personally hold fast to their goals (dreams) for living without them life becomes miserable.
A postponed goal festers like a wound making the person linger in pain, anger, disappointment and regrets. A student becomes preoccupied with an obsession to go home to avoid the school environment.
Dreams keep growing continuously as a person lives on but with nowhere to ventilate it can explode causing untold devastation to the dreamer and the surroundings.
Life goals are very important and we should never put them off nor delay them. We can draw lessons from similes in this poem of a learner living in a dream deferred zone.
For dreams to flourish and catapult an individual towards actualisation, a supportive environment that safeguards against dream postponement through the cultivation of hope and a winner’s mindset is needed.
One should develop a positive attitude towards all subjects and teachers thereby creating enthusiasm and zeal.
Lastly, consistency towards self-improvement in key learning areas to garner enviable grades is required for a prestigious career.
In conclusion, your dream is the magic key for opening esteemed opportunities in life. It acts as a propeller and one ought to keep stepping on the accelerator pedal of self-discipline without pausing.
The writer is a psychological counsellor and a motivational speaker.
Edited by Kiilu Damaris
