We were just about getting ready to warm up for the practice game over the weekend when I had an interesting conversation with one of the team mates I actually didn’t know quite well。

周末的時候，當我們正要為即將到來的游戲熱身，團隊成員中有一個我其實不太了解的成員和我進行了一場有趣的對話。

"So what do you do?" he asked. "Well, we work for ourselves, we run a software company", I replied. "Oh really! that’s awesome! I work for xyz company, but you know I always wanted to get into animation design and work for myself. It was my dream. I got stuck in the wrong industry."

“你是做什么工作的?”他問道。“嗯，我們為自己打工，我們開了一個軟件公司”我回答。“真的?那真是太棒了!我為XX公司工作，但你知道我一直想做動畫設計，想做自由職業。那是我的夢想。我現在被困在一個錯誤的行業里。”

"You ain’t dead yet, are you?" I thought trying hard not say that aloud. He continued "You know, I’ve been wanting to do this for 10 years now, but once you have a family, it’s very tough to do anything else."

“你不還沒死呢嗎……” 我掙扎著沒把這句吼出來。他繼續說：“你知道嗎?我想做這行都有十年了，但是一旦你有了家庭，那想要再做點兒別的事就難了。”

I couldn’t resist anymore, so I said "That’s great, if you really want to do that, may be you should take up some animation classes, or do some self learning at your own pace. That would be a good start". Pat came the reply "Nahh it’s very difficult, with family, full time job, no time. I would love to, but I can’t."

我再也受不了了，于是我說：“如果你真想做那行那很好啊!也許你應該上一些動畫設計的課程，或者是用你自己的節奏自學。那會是個好開始!” 那哥們兒給我回了一句：“啊!?那得多難啊。有家庭、有全職工作，我根本沒時間!我是很喜歡，但是我做不了啊!”

Reluctantly, I suggested "Then may be you should consider training full time for a few weeks/months and perhaps dive in full-time?" He looked at me like I had just asked him to cut off his right hand. "Are you crazy? Where will the paycheck come from?"

我老大不樂意地建議他說：“那也許，你應該試試花幾周、或是幾個月的時間集中培訓，要不就辭職去學習?” 他看著我那小樣兒就跟我在教他剁掉自己右手似的：“你瘋了嗎?那我要怎么生活!?”

Realizing this conversation was heading towards an argument with someone I didn’t know very well at the first place, I chose to just smile and leave it at that. But it made me think. What is it with people refusing to take some risks to follow their dreams. Are their dreams not worth it? If not, why do we sulk about them later? Don’t we owe it to ourselves to at least give our dreams a fair shot?

想到這場對話跟著就會向吵架發展了，而對方我一開始就不太熟，于是我選擇放棄，只是笑笑。但這確實讓我想到：這些人都怎么了?不就要你們冒點兒險、追隨自己的夢想嗎?是你們的夢想不值得你們這么做嗎?如果真不是，那到頭來你們又在煩什么呢?我們是不是應該給我們自己的夢想至少一個機會呢?

(本文是一個國外作者的博文，我們可以看到英文的用詞都很口語化，難度不大。大家不妨試試自己的翻譯水平接著翻譯接下去的段落吧。)

Now, I understand, diving in full time isn’t always an option for everybody, but that shouldn’t deter us from at least starting to move in the right direction. Take baby steps I say, if you can’t afford drastic measures, but for God’s sake don’t kill your dreams。

We all had some crazy ideas and dreams when we were kids. When people asked - "What do you want to do when you grow up?" you didn’t say "I want to play safe and be an executive for a fortune 100 company" or "I want to work for the government for the job security"? You wanted to do something that excited you, that you were passionate about - "Armed forces, scientist, sports, music, dance, miss world" etc. You didn’t even think if that would get you enough money. You just wanted to do it。

So why is it that as we grow up we lose all the passion, the energy, the will and the strength to keep our dreams alive. Why does money dictate our passion or in most cases, kill it? Why do we let "safety of a paycheck" screw our dreams? Why do we stop thinking about what we love?

We are so seduced by the thought of a guaranteed paycheck every month that we completely ignore the fact that it’s actually never too late to pursue our dreams. The reason as I can understand is probably "fear of failure". We fear we might fail and that fear leads us to cook up stories about why you can’t have what you want. Alibis like "I don’t have time, I have family, I’ll do it when I have more money etc". Stories that convince us that it’s ok not to follow up on our dreams, that it’s ok not to do what you love, that it’s ok to just keep doing the everyday drill。

Like Tony Robbins put it - "The only thing that’s keeping you from getting what you want is the story you keep telling yourself about why you can’t have it"

What are we waiting for? A perfect day when all stars would line up in just the right direction and you would be guaranteed success? It never works that way. That moment of glory never arrives. All circumstances will almost never be in your favor. There will always be something that would be challenging. You just have to bite the bullet and take the plunge. When we set out to create Rootein, we didn’t wait for everything to be just perfect, much as we would have liked. We just dived in. We started developing rootein while we were working full-time. We loved what we were doing and we did it while keeping our day time jobs. It wasn’t easy, but it was fun because we were chasing our dream of working for ourselves, building software that we were passionate about。

May be it’s just us. May be we are weird. May be we are foolish, but we would rather be foolish and strive to live our dream than come up with some alibis. True success is not money driven, it’s driven by love and passion. You’ve got to love what you are doing and you’ve got to be passionate about it。

Failing is not scary. What’s scary is that you are 60 and reflecting back on your life "May be I should’ve given my dreams a chance, may be I would’ve succeeded, may be I would’ve lived my dream" But now it’s too late. You might have missed the boat。

Don’t be scared to follow your dreams. That’s the worst thing you can do to yourself。

Rocky sing!

"So many times, it happens too fast

You change your passion for glory

Don’t lose your grip on the dreams of the past

You must fight just to keep them alive"