Because I probably don’t dare to have one.
AI is incredible. It reads you. It understands you. A man-made machinery that isn’t quite alive yet it really feels like so. And then there’s this trend of asking ChatGPT about my dream life.
So I took a try.
And… it was accurate? I think? It’s read all my random questions before so I think it remembered everything.
But.
There’s a strange comfort in that, isn’t there? Letting something outside of yourself tell you what your life should look like. But also, isn’t that terrifying? To rely on a machine to give you direction because you’re too afraid to decide for yourself?
I laughed for a second, realizing how ridiculous that sounded, but then it hit me. It’s not that I don’t have dreams – it’s that I’m afraid to fully own them. Afraid to say them out loud, because what if they’re too big? What if they’re too far out of reach? What if I’m not brave enough to go after them?
I can see it clearly: that version of me who’s fearless, who’s living the life they want without worrying about what might go wrong. But then there’s me right now – constantly second-guessing, stuck in the what-ifs, unsure if I even deserve to dream that big.
Everyone talks about growth and success, about seizing the day and chasing dreams, but no one really talks about what it feels like to be stuck. To know, deep down, that you’re not where you want to be, and worse, to not even have the energy to try. It’s a strange kind of paralysis, this feeling of being untethered, disconnected from the person you know you’re supposed to become.
Because I have a name. I have a dream. But that anxiety lingers. Being constantly in a position where it’s ambiguous whether I’d actually graduate or not, being in a position where it’s high-risk-unknown-return, keep finding myself in places where everything is a question.
I dare to leap. I dare to take the leap. That’s what adventures for. Most workload are done by AI nowadays, that nothing barely feels human anymore. But on the flipside, why do we feel more productive instead? When we feel more helpless than ever, when we feel more.. “Gen Z” and “Chronically Online” than ever. We seek AI or GPT for help, even to console sometimes. And now all the advertisement banners and social media contents are all about structure and tone and campaigns and it’s endless and endless and it’s all about humans.
Too much noise within a day. Yet we can’t live without one.
Yet it’s the world I’ve fallen in love with. The one with humans.
I asked ChatGPT about my dream life and it turns out to be accurate.
But what it can’t convey is how much the now may be enough for me too, for now. The warmth, the memories, the passing train, the running MRTs, the unchecked places, the missed opportunities..
Memories.
In years, just memories.
In months, just either pain or a win.
In days, the best thing that’s ever happened to me.
For now, it’s just the now. Some serene and most not.
But in years, just memories. Even if it was a life generated by AI, the memory remains human.
