You know how there’s always this song that’s stuck in your head. You always go back to it for some reason or another. You catch yourself subconsciously humming it. But then, you start focusing more on the words of the song and you realise that its words speak thousands.

This has happened to me a multitude of times. Lately I’ve been listening a lot to Mighty Oaks’ new album, Mexico. The first track, Land of Broken Dreams, seems to have struck a chord and it’s been on repeat ever since I listened to it. It’s quite a catchy tune, but then you start understanding the message it’s portraying, and damn..

Came on without warning

Like someone’s pulled the carpet

As we grow older, sometimes we look back and think how as kids we had imagined our life unfolding. For some reason, I had always thought that I would become a teacher, get married, have kids, and by the age of 40 I would be all settled down… Well, let’s say that life can throw a few surprises here and there. We all had dreams of what will happen, but dreams change as we go through different experiences in life. We adapt, and our dreams do so as well. 

Being the emotional person that I am, when I look back at the dreams that I had, the plans that I had made, and how life trampled all over them… Well, let’s say that it gets emotional.

Go ahead and cry

What makes you bitter, makes you wise

And I hope you’ll try

To see on past the darkest times

‘Cause life, it can seem

Like a land of broken dreams

The past few years have been a real challenge. All of us had to pause our life, wait it out. Maybe it was a chance for us to analyse where we are standing, make new plans, and update our original life plan. But in reality, even before the pandemic, our dreams and plans rarely went our way. Stuff comes up. Stuff that we hadn’t planned for. It’s life’s way of keeping us on our toes, waiting to see what’s coming next.

Back to the song… this made me realise that we are indeed living in a Land of Broken Dreams. Some people didn’t get the kind of job they had strived for all their life, some people didn’t get the family they wanted, others had to work three jobs to make sure their kids get a decent life. Many people have had their life plans thrown out the window because of different obstacles they couldn’t avoid.

But now those dreams are all you got

Beneath you feet

Broken dreams… that’s what we end up with. Or if you prefer, alternative dreams. We rarely meet people who have their life go all according to plan. If you encounter people like that, let me tell you, they are blessed. So for the rest of us humans, we need to wing it. If one dream doesn’t work out, we adapt and keep going.

Seeing the world around me today, there are so many dreams which have been broken because of war, because of deaths of loved ones, among so many other things. But we still dream of a better life. Perseverance is one blessed human skill. And we must keep at it. We need to grab those dreams by the horn, even if they are broken, and work towards achieving the best in life we can. 

So for all of us out there, living in this world of Broken dreams, life is still good. It’s not what we imagined it would be, but it’s the best life we can ever have. Throughout the years, I’ve learned to trust God and the Universe. I guess they know better. So anything that life throws at us, even though it might be hard, we know we’re capable of handling it. 

So keep dreaming. These dreams are all we’ve got anyway 😉

And for the song, listen below and let me know what you think!