One day last week, I came across an anonymous post on Weibo, in which the person wrote: "I have an account that I haven't logged into for so long that I forgot the password. I tried logging into it today, but resetting the password required answering a security question. The question displayed was 'What is my dream' and I failed to get it right even after more than 20 attempts. I wonder if people can still remember their answers to these questions?"
The post could be a random complaint about forgetting the answer to the security question, which happens to everyone, I guess, but it seems to me more like the frustration of losing one's dreams, just like losing something that you once cherished a lot.
How many of us are able to remember our dreams as a child? How many of us are actually working hard to realize the dream that we’ve had for years? To be honest, I would regard myself as one of them as I am currently trying my best to learn knowledge and accumulate experience to become an actual PR practitioner after graduation. Nevertheless, when I am really about to enter the workplace, I seem to be confused again. After hearing all my concerns, my friend recommended me a film: My Salinger Year, and ensured me that I would definitely find myself in the film. Therefore, I watched it over the past weekend.
(Joanna being informed that all letters can only be replied to with a unified template, source from https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/feb/20/my-salinger-year-review-bafflingly-insipid-berlin-opener-clunks-hard)
The film tells a story about a young woman named Joanna who graduated from the University of London and moved from Berkeley, California to New York to pursue her writing career. Joanna worked at one of New York's oldest literary agencies, answering fan letters for J. D. Salinger, author of The Catcher in the Rye. While Joanna eventually managed to sell her first book and was offered a bigger role at the agency, she still decided to leave in order to become an actual writer.
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A line at the beginning of the film stood out to me: “I don’t want to be ordinary, I want to be extraordinary.” I guess this is also probably what many of us yearn for –– being the irreplaceable one. However, other than eagerly hoping for success, we also fear the unknown uncertainty and possible failure, making us have to be more cautious and even hesitant when facing our dreams. So did Joanna, faced with the uncertainty of life and a writing career after graduation, she came to the agency and worked there as an assistant. She was excited to know she could work with those well-known authors, but having to work long hours dealing with simple tasks still impeded her to start her own novel. Because of this, after she read her boyfriend's newly completed work, she felt unprecedentedly frustrated, jealous, and to some extent disappointed in herself. Perhaps many of us have been waiting for the best time to start pursuing our dreams, believing that we will be fully prepared and have a higher possibility of achieving what we want. However, with the triviality of life and the passing of time, we may be farther and farther away from what we want to be, until one day we eventually forget where to restart.
(Joanna reading a novel at the train station, source from https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/03/04/arts/raise-high-roof-beam-joanna/)
Another moment I strongly empathize with is when Joanna is reading a fan letter by the office window. In the letter, the fan mentioned that he would often fall into a quiet emotional state as he usually finds it impossible to reveal his emotions to the world. Apparently, Joanna resonated strongly with what the guy suggested, but being in such a situation, how should people deal with these emotions? Is digesting these emotions ourselves or waiting for them to go away the only solution? The reason why I am so interested in this idea is that sometimes I also find it difficult to express myself to others. Maybe it's because I'm worried that others wouldn’t understand, or I'm the only one who thinks this way, or even I am not assertive enough to agree with myself, making it uncertain to find someone who can actually understand and affirm my thoughts. So I often get trapped in these emotions and indulge them to consume my energy and time. Being stuck in this emotional dilemma also prevented me from making the most use of my time on pursuing my dream, which could be another reason for the feeling of being lost.
(Joanna reading the letters with her boyfriend, Don, source from: https://www.timesofisrael.com/my-salinger-year-catches-a-woman-and-world-on-the-cusp-of-metamorphosis/)
Anyway, I do think Joanna made the right decision. Maybe she would fail at the beginning, and she may not be able to earn as much as working in the agency, but even so, she is already closer to her dream, isn't she? Therefore, my biggest takeaway from the film is: don't stop loving, and don’t stop dreaming. Just like what Joanna said: “I am afraid that if I don’t do them now, I never will.” Put your dreams into action; those that have not started will eventually come back to you, waiting to be realized.