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There's something very interesting that one would notice around children, especially the ones at school. Children talk about the future like it’s something they can just walk into. One wants to become a pilot because planes look nice in the sky. One wants to become a teacher because they like writing on the board. One wants to become a cricketer because they hit one good shot in the playground and everyone clapped. Their reasons are simple, but their confidence is very real.

Nobody has told them yet what is difficult and what is impossible.
Then slowly, as years pass, answers change. By the time people reach college, if you ask them what they want to become, the answer is no longer a dream. It is usually a safe answer. Something that sounds sensible. Something that sounds achievable. Somewhere along the way, dreams get edited.

This is why A. P. J. Abdul Kalam kept telling children to dream. He didn’t say it once. He said it three times. Almost like he knew the world would slowly try to make children more practical than curious.

If you look at how people actually grow into things, it rarely happens because of one big decision. It usually starts very small. A child who likes drawing will draw on the last page of every notebook. Teachers know this. Parents know this. Every notebook has that one page full of random drawings. Nobody told the child to practice. The child just kept drawing because they liked it.

The same with sports. There is always that one child who reaches the ground first and leaves last. Nobody forced them. They just like being there. Or the child who keeps reading storybooks even after the teacher says keep the book away. Again, nobody forced them. They just like stories.

When you look at these children, you can actually see what Dr Kalam meant. First there is a dream or an interest. Then the child keeps thinking about it. Then the child keeps doing small things related to it. Years later, people say, “This person worked very hard and became successful.” But the story usually started much earlier, when the child was just doing something again and again because they liked it.

Dreams don’t suddenly change life in one day. They quietly change how a person spends time. And how a person spends time slowly becomes what they become in life.

The problem is not that children don’t dream. The problem is that as they grow older, they slowly stop saying their dreams out loud. They start thinking they should only talk about things that sound practical. But most people who end up doing interesting things in life were not very practical in the beginning. They were just very interested in something and kept going back to it again and again.

Maybe that is why Dr Kalam kept telling children to dream. Not because dreaming is enough, but because without dreaming, nothing even begins.