Following Your Dreams

What is the underlying reason as to why we do not fulfill our dreams? Maybe it is because we lack the inner motivation and desire within ourselves; or we tend to blame other people for our failures; or perhaps we are missing the resources that we desperately need. Sometimes it may be because others discourage us. A dream is a personal desire to accomplish something that we want to achieve, but we do not necessarily know where to begin or even have enough confidence within ourselves to fulfill it. A specific factor that plays a major role in fulfilling our dreams can be the issue of gender. Many people feel that women do not have the same opportunities that males are given in specific fields. For example, the field of science deals with the issue of gender in the sense that females feel their work is looked upon differently that their male counterparts. According to McClintock, "the matter of gender never does drop away" (Keller, pg. 51). In order to fully understand the meaning of following ones own dreams, we may look at the lives of Barbara McClintock, Johnny Bench, and Avril Lavigne. They represent dreams in very similar, yet vaguely different ways by showing the world what it takes to overcome obstacles and to follow your dreams successfully.

Evelyn Fox Keller was born in 1936, and is currently a professor of history and philosophy of science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her work focuses on how science is conceptualized, especially on envisioning scientific thinking from an outsider, or a female's perspective. Keller has written many books, lectured, and has received many awards: such as a MacArthur Fellowship. In this specific essay A World of Difference, Keller uses McClintock as an example of the difference between how females approach their scientific research compared to males. (41)

Barbara McClintock was born in 1902, and started making contributions to classical genetics and cytology when she reached the age of twenty. As a result, she was given laboratory space and the fellowship stipends she needed to pursue her lifelong goal of finding and understanding the secrets of plant genetics. By the mid 1930's, she had already made a mark on the history of genetics. Eventually, the fellowships ran out, leaving McClintock wondering where she should go from there. "With no job on the horizon, McClintock thought she would have to leave science. Encouraged by some of the many great men of classical genetics, T.H. Morgan and R.A. Emerson argued "it would be a scientific tragedy if her work did not go forward" (73).

McClintock was off to a good start when she made her first mark in history. Morgan and Emerson, had no way of knowing that she would make any further discoveries as when she first discovered the secrets of plant genetics. Yet, they still believed that she was not done making all of the scientific discoveries that she had envisioned for herself. It goes to show you that if you have a dream, and you start working hard to pursue that dream, there will be people there that support and believe in you. This clearly indicates how dedicated McClintock was to her work. Even though she was a woman in a field dominated by men, she did not let that get in the way. She still followed her dreams! McClintock even rejected having a research assistantship or a teaching post at a women's college, just so she could devote her life to strictly scientific research. She may not have received a lot of recognition for her work, but Morgan and Emerson believed that based on what she had previously accomplished, more great things would come of it. Unlike McClintock, there are people out there that do not always believe in us. So why is it that when we have dreams and goals in our lives that some people tell us they are impossible? Why is it that we should try and be more "realistic" in what we want to do/be? Is it because of those who do not believe in us that we lack the motivation to even start our goals and dreams?

Maybe people tell us our dreams are impossible because they are scared of what we may discover, or they wish they could have thought of our dreams first. They feel we need to be more "realistic" while following our dreams so that we do not set up disappointment for our selves. Like Morgan and Emerson, we must try to believe and have hope that one will pursue their dreams and go further. In other words, we must be supportive! If people are not giving us support while we are making dreams and trying to follow through with them, then we may give up. People would start to feel like their dreams were not important or worthwhile. As a result, we tend to lack motivation to even start our goals and dreams. So, how exactly do we figure out our dreams and then follow through with them no matter what anybody else says? Perhaps we can look to those like McClintock that have already set and started fulfilling their goals, and then do what works best for us.

In 1942, McClintock's profession of becoming a scientist was secured when she received a haven at the Carnegie Institution of Washington at Cold Spring Harbor, where she has remained ever since. Later, she was elected to the National Academy of Science and then became president of the Genetics Society of America. In her forties, McClintock discovered genetic transportation. Today she is a Nobel laureate and has received many other awards and prizes for her work (42). Not only does McClintock prove to other scientists that she will not give up, but she sets a nationwide/global example to those of us who do tend to quit striving for our dreams because of what other people think or if we have limited resources. McClintock took everything she had, worked with it, and created for herself the respect and acknowledgement that she deserved.

When people look at other's research and try to understand it, sometimes it is not visible as to why or how they came up with the answers they did. Also, they may think they could have approached their work at a different angle. Maybe the researcher has an answer but it is not the right one. If this occurs, sometimes they look at different factors that could have determined their outcome. One of these factors may be the lack of motivation, or it may just be an act of research bias. In other words, if our work is not being looked at the same as our male counterparts, then we may lack the motivation to start or follow through with our work, and feel that it is simply an act of others discriminating against our work based on gender. According to McClintock, she feels that "much of the work done is done because one wants to impose an answer on it--they have the answer ready, and they [know what] they want the material to tell them, so anything it doesn't tell them, they don't really recognize as there or they think it's a mistake