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I have been quite a dreamer since young. As a kid, I dreamt of many things – Travelling around the world, publishing a novel, becoming a billionaire and even serving as a missionary in the poorest country in the world. There are no boundaries in the realm of imagination and I had so much fun forming the wildest dreams and laughing at my boldness.
One of my fondest memories growing up is of the time I spent at my school’s piano in the school hall. I was in love with the piano even though I didn’t know how to play it. To be fair, my mum did enroll me into a piano course but I dropped out after 5 lessons. Learning musical theory wasn’t exactly my idea of learning how to play the piano, you see. But I continued to bang on the school piano as often as I could, forcing my friends to teach me a song at a time. I would learn and memorize in parts, then practice every single day before school until I mastered it, before moving on to the next song. I had so much passion in the piano and looked forward to my ‘practice sessions’ every single day, even though it meant arriving in school three to four hours before lessons start. I did not tell anyone then, but I had a little dream – I wanted to be a wedding pianist one day.
A wedding pianist? Me?? It sounded too far-fetched an idea. It was a big dream for many people, let alone for someone as young as me without any formal training. I didn’t dare to tell anyone for fear of being laughed at. I was after all a dropout from piano classes.
Even though it felt like an impossible dream, I continued to work hard on the piano the best I knew how. From memorizing piano pieces from my friends, I started to learn how to play different chords on the piano. Even though I couldn’t read music scores, I started to play songs by referring to guitar chords! It was funny and almost unbelievable on hindsight and I didn’t know how it happened, but before I knew it, I could play the gist of a song by listening to it. Till today, I still can’t read music scores, but I could play the main tune of a song whenever I hear one. All those years of practice sessions before school sure built a foundation for me to become a pianist, albeit a rather haphazard one, I must admit. =P
I was invited to be a wedding pianist for the first time by a dear friend years later. She needed someone to play the piano for praise and worship at her wedding but due to certain circumstances, she couldn’t find anyone. When she heard that I could play simple songs, she immediately asked me for help. Thinking back, she must have been really desperate to approach a rookie who had never played at an event before, to play for her wedding! Frankly, I could not remember much of what happened now, but I remembered it went okay and I had a lot of nerve-wreaking fun at the wedding. After the wedding, it dawned upon me that it was a day to be remembered, and it was the day one of my wildest dreams came to pass - I became a wedding pianist that day. Even though I played at many other weddings after that, that particular wedding would always be the most fondly-remembered.
Many of us dreamed big dreams as kids, but as we got older, many of those dreams became deeply buried in our memories because of the harsh realities of life. The dreams that used to give us so much hope and inspiration had been deemed as impractical or useless. I personally feel though, that we should never stop weaving our dreams, no matter how old we’ve gotten. Dreams give us visions and hope – Even big dreams that seemed unobtainable may one day become reality. If there is one thing life has taught me, that is “Never say never”. I didn’t dare to believe that my wild dream of becoming a wedding pianist could come to pass, but it did. Thankfully, I didn’t stop honing my skills and trying my best to become good at something I was passionate in. So, if you’ve had a dream but you’ve stopped pursuing it, why not resurrect that dream again?
As the year draws to a close, jobsDB has launched a campaign called ‘Dream Big’ with the tagline, ‘Big Dreams Start Small’. – It hopes to remind Singaporeans that it’s never too late to Dream Big - Even adults can live out their own big dreams! This campaign will run from now till 17 Dec 2014, 2559 hours. It’s an Instagram competition that involves creating an inspiration board of the exciting (and sometimes funny) big dreams that little people have.
The competition mechanics are simple:
1. Take a video of a 3 to 12-year-old child (could be your sibling, cousin, niece or nephew) sharing what they want to be when they grow up and why.
2. Upload the video to Instagram and hashtag #jobsDBDreamBig
3. Follow @jobsdb_singapore on Instagram
4. Make sure your Instagram profile is set to public.
Entrants stand a chance to win the grand prize of a $3,000 travel voucher to a destination of their choice or one of 10 sets of movie vouchers! There is no limit to the number of entries you can submit. Winning posts will be determined by the number of ‘likes’ accumulated on Instagram, so get your family and friends to support you. :)
Winners will be announced on jobs DB’s Facebook page and Instagram account.
For more campaign details, you may check out: www.jobsdb.com.sg/dreambig
Not sure what to post yet? Take an inspiration from the campaign launch film!
I am grateful that I had the chance to live out my dream and I hope that you can too - Let 2015 be the year where your dreams take flight. :)