I read a quote from former US president Bill Clinton today.  “When our memories outweigh our dreams, we have grown old.”  The quotes juxtaposition between memories and dreams intrigued me.

You could intrepret this statement to imply dreams are to live for while memories are the past.  These reminisces  can provide pleasure, but also pain, they don’t lead to action, it is already done.

Weighting Dreams and Actions

On the whole, I very much enjoy remembering my past.  My life has been a happy one and so far my personal goal of attaining maximum happiness and pleasure has been achieved.

Interestingly this was accomplished not by dreaming, but rather by taking action. Of course,  dreams can lead to action, and I am pretty sure that was the underlying assumption Mr. Clinton had when he made the quote.

Without some attempt at realization, dreams are just empty thoughts.  Memories may not move you forward but they derive from dreams that were realized.

Doing Less

If memories require dreams to be acted on, than more dreams than memories implies less action, which is often considered to be an attribute of getting old.

Although, as the population ages this becomes less and less true.  The number of instances of active oldsters (e.g., people over 100 running marathons, doing acrobatics or acting in major films) continues to be on the rise.

These active oldsters have both ample memories and dreams they are aggressively persuing.  This current reality  makes Mr. Clintons quote somewhat an anacronism of the past.

I dream about my future successes and accomplishments and I am actively planning how to achieve them, even after I reach 100 years old.