Response to Focusing the Lasers

A dreamer is the category that I fit in. A dreamer is someone that knows what they want to do in life. However, they don’t know how to get started and is stuck in the middle of their dreams and starting to work towards that dream. With all the ideas and dreams in our heads, we don’t know how to put it out there for everyone else to see. For example, when I was in University of California Santa Cruz, I had big dreams of being in the marine biology field so I can help the wild life except, I don’t know how I’m going to do it. This led me to lose my passion for that field and also got me to leave the UC. For me it was just a dream that I felt like I could never accomplish. I know what I wanted but I just couldn’t wrap my fingers around it to fully pursue it. In addition, during my time at UCSC, I also added molecular biology to my major because of my class that I took. I think this could classify me as a wanderer as well but now I have changed my major into something that I like and will stick to. Only problem now is that I don’t know how to get to my goal. I want to start on my path except, but like all the dreamers, we are just sitting there with ideas in our heads and clueless on how to start our career choice. Despite numerous times of wandering, I have become a dreamer who has lots of ideas and hope in my head but no idea how to take action. 

Being a dreamer is frustrating. As a dreamer, I can’t put my ideas to good use and see how it affects people. It just sits there in my head while I watch others grapple with the same ideas and major I have and are going towards the path of success. Watching all of those people knowing what to do in life and then looking back at myself and wondering: “Why can’t I move on like them?” For instance, in the Focusing the Lasers movie, a student came to college with dreams of being a story teller. “I want to be a story teller, that’s what I want to do; I want to tell stories to people.” (Focusing the Lasers). The student dreamed of telling stories to people but like all of us dreamers, we’re kind of stuck. I think his passion to tell stories to people is really nice and the fact that he went on to doing something that is the closest to storytelling after the program was cut, really tells a lot of his goals. He is willing to do whatever it takes to accomplish his goals but just need that little push to get there or to get on the right track. For example, when I was studying marine biology, I can’t get into a marine biology class so I took oceans which were the closest thing to it and I just got stuck in that class. I think taking that class opened my eyes up to how much I don’t know about my major. I felt frustrated that I chose a major and don’t know how to get started. Even though I took a class similar to my major, it just seems so distant from me and like it just didn’t go anywhere. This angered me and at the same time made me realize how ill prepared I was to tackle college and starting a path for myself. 

Be more open to people can get people out of those categories and into another. By being more open to others, a person can express themselves and could even get advices. This also helps the other person understand why this person is stuck on his or her path. It can also provide insight to better solutions to address the problem. For instance, I’m very shy and because of that, I don’t express my ideas to others. This leads me to just sit there with all those dreams in my head and not doing anything. If I express myself some more, then it is a first step to actually finding my path and organizing what I need to do to successfully attain my goal. To express myself I need to talk to people and ask the teachers for help. For instance, the student in the movie said the teachers are really good. “I was very fortunate for all the teachers here that I had at Chabot.” (Focusing the Laser). I think it is a good thing that teachers at Chabot are really good. It makes me feel much more comfortable to open up to them and tell them my problems. If the environment isn’t comfortable for someone, it will be hard for them to open up and reveal their problems. So for me to get out of the dreamers category and into the laser category, I will have to open up to people to tell them my problems so they can help me become unstuck.

Link: 
 http://vimeo.com/47572353