Follow that Dream

Apparently most people don't follow their dream according to some survey or other.  Which got me thinking about dreams and surveys.

What kind of dream should we follow?  The teenage dream of being asked out by that gorgeous fellow in school?   So he asks you out - so maybe he's the world's greatest pain and all he has to recommend him is that lean athletic body and those sparkling white teeth when he smiles. End of dream (although if you're anything like me as a teenager, you probably won't notice that he's boring for some time).

What about a grown-up dream : I'd- love-to-be-a-doctor-kind-of-dream?  That is more likely to come through and I think that anyone who has a definite idea of what they want to be, career-wise, is very likely to follow that dream.  It requires hard work, patience and perseverance in most cases but it's worth it if you love what you work at.  It's a bit of a bind if you find it isn't what you thought but nowadays you can have a stab at different careers and next time maybe you'll know what you want.

And then we have the grown up version of the Dream Man, the knight in shining armour on a white horse, well in a white Porsche maybe, with the scent of danger and Armani cologne about him, the man who is going to whisk us off our feet.  Very unlikely we're going to meet him, isn't it?  Not even two TV shows using all Gok's skill would make it more probable, I reckon.  This is not necessarily a bad thing.  There's so much competition for handsome eligible single guys it's kind of like jostling for the best bargain in the winter sales.  Much better to accept something a little shop-worn and casual and family friendly with which you can be you and don't have the perpetual struggle of keeping his attention and fighting off the predators.

I'd like to know how they go about those surveys.  Sometimes they tell you it was a "representative survey of 2000 people."  But what is meant by representative?  And what do they mean by "dream"?  Do they mean our wildest dream such as living on a deserted island, preferably with our favourite film star - that'd be George Clooney for me although I'm not sure I'd enjoy seeing him every single minute of the day, in which case a DVD player would be preferable.
We know that we are not going to follow our wildest dream, we are not going to climb Mount Everest or win the New York marathon or be picked to star in the next Oscar-worthy movie.  We could make these dreams come true if we really wanted to and some people do.  But deep down inside we're quite content getting the 08.10 train every morning and that comfortable salary payment into our bank accounts.  A whiff of adventure?  Well, let's get out the holiday brochures.