Happiness and Success 42

Factor # 3 – Dreams Do Come True.

The reason why many dreams do not become realities is because they are fantastic or cannot be reached as of a certain time. Those who want to visit Mars are doomed to fail or to gain nothing out of it at least within the next 10 years, obviously because Mars is too far and it will be too expensive to invest on. It is good perhaps for scientific discoveries or evaluations.

Those who dream about meeting needs of people in order to build them up — these are the people with more hope for a fulfilment in their dreams someday.

Some of the idealistic dreams that this civilized world should work on are the following: (1) more concern for people who need work in order to survive, as well as more job opportunities for the general public; (2) more entrepreneurs who can convert resources into productive endeavors, serviceable means for survival or for meeting needs, and to improve the conditions of our world; (3) more capital to be made available for viable projects that can be handled by entrepreneurs; (4) better terms and conditions from financial institutions with the means to disperse the financing facilities for more entrepreneurs; (5) better performance of government when it comes to shouldering the burdens of those who cannot be employed due to old age, poor health, poverty, lack of education, lack of employment opportunities;

(6) stronger check against corrupt officials; (7) more intense law enforcement against criminals wherever they may be. We can enumerate many more wants that should be met.

For example, although the government claims to have local units to provide society with more humane and quick response to problems of people, we also see a lot of neglected children in the streets and sidewalks, with no source of food, no place to take a bath, no shelter, no decent clothes, not even a chair to sit on. They look so dirty, probably dirtier than well-fed degs at home. We come to ask where is the role of government in that scenario ? What are we paying taxes for ? Government spends billions for roads to satisfy vehicles and owners of vehicles. But does the government provide for the survival of impoverished fellowmen ?

Very few entrepreneurs survive the economic crisis because the banks support the gigantic organizations more than those who really need financial assistance for viable projects. Owners and managers of banks do not bother to find ways and means to verify which projects are likely to become profitable or not, when it comes to smaller entrepreneurs. They believe in the mortgage value of properties they can recover in case a business fails. And who will banks eventually support ? Most probably, the rich stockholders and depositors get the major funding, while the majority of entrepreneurs get the crumbs. There will come a time when a more intelligent financing organization will base its allocations on the profitability of and need for certain businesses, rather than on the mortgage value of the properties they can recover.

The worse scenario that serves as a crucial example for a sick financing system was when borrowers had problems paying because of the past financial crisis. There it was clear that the managers and owners exert all kinds of foolishness against people in default, including but not limited to charging onerous, exhorbitant, and usurious interest rates and penalties as though they did a lot of work to collect, when they never did bother to find out what the real problem was on the part of the borrowers. They failed to assist the entrepreneurs from the very begining, by knowing their situation in the first place. They were content with lending and getting their money back. But for the rich organizations, banks gave special treatments like shouldering their debts or buying shares of the owners. It was the banks’ prerogative. But where was the dream of building up more entrepreneurs so that more businesses can provide more employment ? They could have made small entrepreneurs eventually realize the difficulty of staying small, and that their direction should have been towards incorporating or forming cooperatives with good terms and conditions. Sound advices could have saved a lot of entrepreneurs from heavy losses during tough times.

In other words, we still live in a world where cheating is prevalent. From corrupt officials down to financial executives, we have questions of irresponsible leadership. We obviously dream of righteous leaders forthcoming in the near future.