# You can change your dream - Author: @gurupanguji - Date: 2026-07-24 - URL: https://gurupanguji.com/blog/2026/07/24/you-can-change-your-dream/ - Categories: link --- Growing up, I wanted an _impressive_ life. I was _ambitious, smart, and capable._ Yet, what I wanted to be - was just _impressive._ Wise people will already to start to see a problem. It's a lack of clarity. I was lucky enough to be interested in technology. I was genuinely excited and smart to understand it well and had a natural inclination towards understanding complex systems. This got me on a path that was lucky to be in the right place at the right time with the right skills that allowed me to build a career of impressive accomplishments at some of the greatest companies in the world. By every external metric, I lived a comfortable life, did wonderfully exciting things. Yet, I remained unsatisfied. What did I do? - I thought satiation will be achieved with more _accomplishments_. - I started buying things to satisfy more hedonic pleasures - Starting indulging in luxurious experiences Wise people will once again see the folly of my beliefs. The dissatisfaction never left. And that's all because of a lack of clarity, knowing what I want. --- Reading through Stoic and Hindu philosophy, I now question if it's even the _want_ that's at the root of the discontent. Seneca said: > It is not the man who has too little who is poor, but the man who is always after more. > ... > Natural desires have a limit, but those which spring from false opinion have nowhere to stop. Closer to home, Anthony de Mello said: > You don’t have to add anything in order to be happy; you’ve got to drop something. Epicurus said: > If you wish to make Pythocles rich, do not add to his store of money, but subtract from his desires. Epictetus said: > Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants. Marcus Aurelius said: > Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking. --- These are all parallels to Hindu philosophy as well. Hinduism states our _true nature_ - is _Sat-chit-Ananda_: complete, perfect and blissful. Suffering / discontentment and the resulting dispassion: _vairagya_ is a result of latching our happiness to external, changing things. The way to attain peace then is to drop attachments and aversions: _raga_ and _dvesha_. The Gita, Upanishads and the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali all talk about giving up material desires, not to covet and practicing contentment (_santhosha). Put another way - it's the want that's the cause of discontent. Doing something is usually a path to bliss as your _mind_ is focused on the action - which in itself is a state of contentment. But attaching _outcomes_ to it now makes that doing a means to an end - a want. --- It's because I gave up my job and prioritized trying to find clarity that I had the time time, the energy and the effort to attain the clarity. And it's because of my job that I now have the time and the wherewithal to spend time to attain clarity. --- All I can say is that I am glad to be on the path to better understanding this. Practicing it going to be the story of my life for the next half. I can only pass these learnings on to my son and hope that he has a chance to assimilate and practice some of these earlier than I did. And I hope that I leave him with the thought that it's okay to change your dream as you will still end up learning things that are very important. --- सर्वे भवन्तु सुखिनः । सर्वे सन्तु निरामयाः । सर्वे भद्राणि पश्यन्तु । मा कश्चिद्दुःखभाग्भवेत् ॥ _Sarve bhavantu sukhinah | Sarve santu nirāmayāḥ |_ _Sarve bhadrāṇi paśyantu | Mā kaścid duḥkha-bhāg-bhavet ||_