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