When you stop having dreams and ideals, you might as well stop altogether.
Marian Anderson, who broke the color barrier at the Metropolitan Opera, understood something most motivational talk obscures: the question isn't whether dreams make life pleasant, but whether they make life *possible*. Without the animating force of aspiration, we don't merely become depressed—we become functionally absent, going through motions without the internal compass that says *this matters*. A parent working three jobs to send a child to college, a carpenter perfecting an old technique no one pays premium prices for anymore—these people aren't sustained by optimism alone, but by ideals that give weight to their daily choices. Anderson's warning cuts deeper than "follow your dreams"; she's saying that to lose them is to lose your tether to meaning itself.