Random Thoughts on Dreams

Tomorrow, John Denver sings, is yesterday’s dreams.

Each of us has dreams, and our dreams are always for something better than the situation in which we are now. For those of us parents who don’t have wealth to hand down to our children, we labor hard so our children can get to and finish school. Our dream is that one day after they finish college, our children can finally stand on their own toes.

So we may be taxi drivers, masons or carpenters, farmers or simple office workers, but we share a common dream -- to see our children become independent and responsible for their own lives later on. By the time our children get to become independent, we can breathe a sigh of relief as we thank the heavens for giving us all the strength and the love to help make the dreams of our children come true.

It is also this dream of a better tomorrow for our families, which drives many of us to seek jobs overseas. Unfortunately, we are born in a country where we are uncertain of what tomorrow will bring for us. Jobs are still elusive. Government can’t provide these for us. We try to apply for a government position and we discover that there are hundreds vying for that single position. And more often than not, the lucky one is the one endorsed by some top politician.

In applying for jobs overseas, we have to seek for those that are in demand in the global job market. Highly in demand now are nurses. As a result even pastors, physicians, accountants or office workers are now enrolling in nursing schools.

The demand for nurses created some multiplier effect in the home front. Universities and colleges, which didn’t offer nursing courses before, have opened nursing departments. In fact, new nursing schools have also mushroomed. So do review centers, which have sprouted like flea market stalls and videoke bars. Problem is that one review center has allegedly been implicated in leaking some answers to a board examination last June.

With the possibility of nullifying the results of the recent board exams as a result of the alleged leakage, hundreds of examinees who honestly passed the exams would be unnecessarily affected. This would disrupt the dreams of many young people who were aspiring to make the nursing board exam as a passport to jobs overseas. That’s what dishonesty can do – it can destroy dreams.

The review center, which reportedly leaked some answers to the board exams, might as well start learning that honesty is still the best policy. The review center reportedly leaked answers to the board exams in order to ensure a big percentage of board passers and thus raise its reputation over the other competing review centers. With such motive, this review center should be closed down because it has disrupted the dreams of many young people.

By leaking some answers, the review center is also teaching a wrong value, which just adds to the various scams in both high and low places now tearing apart this nation. These scams make this country of our dreams a land of our nightmares. We can do better than this as a people by reviewing our GMRC (good manners and right conduct) or refreshing ourselves with the values and qualities we learned as Boy and Girl Scouts.