Idealist vs realist

Is it okay to be idealist? Or should we be realist? This question often popped out in my head nowadays. There are two recent activities which made that floated in my mind.

The first one is yesterday when I drive my mom for monthly grocceries shopping.

I told her everything about my (previous) working place. I was able to explain the condition in my working place without losing my patience. I was taking my time to describe the condition from one department to another, the work colleagues issues, and many more. In the other hand, my mom was patiently listening to me and giving some comments. She was not judging me whether I was wrong or not yet she was not supporting me. Just listen to me. Thus, somehow, there were some urge inside asking me to tell her about my plan (after I decided to resigned for work).

Well, my parents quite woried about me since I resigned from my work. I didn’t tell them much about it when I decided to do it, yet my future plan. So, it’s quite normal isn’t it?

I’ll explain the second reason before discussing the main topic.

Since my timetable is quite flexible now, my daily activities are job hunting on the Internet, doing house chores like cooking, exercising and watching drama series which I got from my friends and from Internet. Specifically, I watched Japanese drama which were starred by Kimura Takuya, for instance Hero (2001), Good Luck!! (2003), Pride (2004), Engine (2005), and CHANGE (2008). In my opinion, there are some similarities in character he portrayed in those movies, like persistent, hardworking, idealist and – what inspire me most is – he will do whatever it takes to achieve his dream. I like his words in the final episode of his recent drama, CHANGE. In this drama, he acts as Japan Prime Minister while previously he was an elementary schol teacher. He always said this to his kids when they had softball match, and he used this during final speech as Japan Prime Minister.

Run with all your might even if it’s an out.

Now back to the main topic.

In my opinion, idealist is a person who do the job according to some ideals, maybe the person’s belief value or society’s. Then, I made some ifs.

  1. If I were an idealist in terms of achieving my dreams, I will do whatever it takes to achieve my dream. I won’t let my dream to be taken by someone.
  2. If I were an idealist in terms of doing my job, I will give my best to make the task done.
  3. If I were an idealist of life value, I will try with the strength I have to do what is right and not do something wrong, like something that may malign other people.

Therefore, my self-answer for that ifs is, since the right and wrong value is something abstract it’s quite easy for someone to do something wrong since he felt it’s right to do it.

Meanwhile, realist is someone who acts according to the needs at that time, present time. For instance, if my current working place needs people to obey and do something as the boss command, I should do it. However, I just can’t merely doing something or obeying rules. Especially if my conscience refused to do it. As in my writing before, to be present is the most important thing to do.

But, I guess I choose to be idealist first. I don’t know whether I will take the same decision in the next 10 years about the same problem. I will take my time to learn and to grow. I’ll let troubles and time to mold my character.

Therefore, I decide to chase my dreams with all my might 😀

PS: During the final year of my study, one of my friend told me that I should be more realist and that was 4 years ago.