Tonight, after quite a long break from my usual routine, I finally took Loki out for a walk. It was about 10 at night, 21 November 2025. The road was quiet, the air a bit heavier than usual, and I could feel that my mind had stored up more than a week’s worth of unsaid things.

I had just come back from our school’s prom night.

On paper, this is one of those events that should make a principal feel proud. Students dressed up, music, laughter, teachers taking photos, everyone trying to freeze a moment in time before they move on to the next chapter of life. From the outside, it looked beautiful.

But inside, I felt strangely disconnected.

I stood there, not exactly knowing where to stand. I felt awkward. Not the “I do not belong here at all” kind of awkward, but the “I am supposed to belong, yet I feel like an outsider” kind of awkward. As an INFP, big social environments are already not natural for me. I am introverted. Small, honest conversations are my comfort zone. Surface level talk, loud rooms, being “on” for many people at once, these things drain me.

The confusing part is that I am holding the principal role, so it feels like I am supposed to be there, and supposed to be that person who can stand in the middle of the crowd and feel at home. Yet I do not teach them. I do not meet them often. I spend more time with HQ and leadership, with systems and plans, than with the students themselves. So I was there, but not really there.

Watching all this, one question came to me quite clearly.

“What kind of dream am I really living, and what kind of dream am I inviting them into?”

That is how the whole “3 dreams” reflection came back.

Next year, I know I need to build in a real rhythm to see students, at least once a month, just to sit down and talk with them. Not to give speeches, but to listen, to let them get to know me beyond the title, and for me to really know who they are becoming. Because I realised, if I am going to talk to them about dreams, I need to first make sure my own dream is still alive and honest.

During my opening speech at prom, I shared something simple. I told them there are three types of dreams. At first it sounds like a neat framework. But for me, it is not theory. It is my life.

Daydream

The first is daydream.

Daydream is the easiest to describe. You have a dream, you never build a plan, and you take no action. That combination is called daydream.

I think everyone has this, especially when we are younger. When I was a boy, I walked like a CEO, influenced by dramas and movies. I imagined myself in suits, running companies, admired by people. I imagined a marriage that is always romantic, filled with gentle understanding and effortless connection. I imagined being talented in music without ever really practising. I wanted the outcome without the process.

At that time, I did not know how dangerous daydreaming can be when it is not balanced with real movement. The more you imagine a future you never work toward, the more your current life feels like a disappointment. Your mind lives in one world while your body stays in another.

Research actually confirms this. People who frequently daydream without taking real steps toward their imagined life experience more dissatisfaction and anxiety. The brain enjoys the fantasy for a while, but when nothing moves in reality, the gap between “what I wish my life is” and “what my life actually is” gets bigger and bigger. Eventually that becomes heavy. It can become depression.

Daydream does not ask you to sacrifice anything. It just takes from you quietly, year after year.

Artificial Dream

The second type is what I call the artificial dream.

If daydream is fantasy without movement, artificial dream is movement without authenticity. It is not that you are doing nothing. You are doing a lot. But you are building a life that started from the outside, not from within.

Social media, culture, parents, friends, trends, all these voices can plant dreams into us that are not really ours. These are the “you should be” and “you must be” dreams. You see a friend who is good at dance, suddenly you want to dance. Your classmates are applying for certain courses, you just follow along. Your parents admire doctors, so you feel pushed towards medicine. Your community praises certain careers, so you think that is what “success” means.

Studies show that a large percentage of young people in Malaysia compare themselves to lives they see online. It is not surprising that many of them build goals around those images. In that sense, it is like drinking zero sugar drinks. It tastes sweet, but the sweetness is not real. It is manufactured.

I almost lived an artificial dream myself.

I studied accounting, banking and finance. It sounded professional, stable and respectable. My parents ran a business that did well. Naturally, they hoped I would take over. They were not being selfish. They sacrificed so much to raise us through that business. For them, it seemed obvious that this is how the story should continue. In their mind, that is how a son honours his family and carries the legacy.

From the outside, that path looked very safe and very good. But inside, something did not sit right. I did not enjoy working with figures. The idea of running that business did not give me any sense of meaning. It felt like wearing clothes that did not fit, even if they were expensive.

Artificial dreams are not completely bad. At least you are doing something. Trying to walk in a path, even if it is not fully yours, will still teach you. You discover what you like and what you cannot stand. You learn to recognise misalignment.

The danger is that artificial dreams can “succeed” in a visible way. You can earn well, gain status, make your family proud, and still feel like something is missing. That is a very quiet kind of pain.

Real Dream

The third type is the real dream.

A real dream usually does not appear in a dramatic way. It often grows quietly. It is that pull inside you that keeps returning even when you try to push it away. It is the work that leaves you tired but satisfied. It is the kind of thing you think about even when no one is asking, and you care about it even when nobody is watching.

Over time, I realised that a real dream has at least two ingredients: Purpose and sacrifice.

Purpose is not something you invent out of thin air. It is often found at the intersection of a few things. What you are good at. What you enjoy doing. What the world needs. And what people are willing to pay for. Different thinkers call this different names, but the idea is similar. When these four meet, you often find a sense of “This is what I am meant to be doing now.”

For me, that began in the classroom.

My first job as a lecturer paid RM 1,800. Not impressive by market standards. Around that time, I received an offer in Singapore to work as an auditor, paying 2,400 dollars. With the exchange rate then at about 2.6, you do not need very advanced accounting skills to see the gap. By staying in Malaysia, I was giving up more than RM 4,000 a month. That is around RM 53,000 a year. Over 10 years, before any compounding, it already passes half a million. With investment and an 8 percent return, the gap easily reaches a million.

These are just numbers, but numbers have weight.

I remember my father showing me their tax documents for the first time. I saw clearly how much they were earning. Multi-million revenue. Good profit. Solid business. For them, it made perfect sense to say, “Why not just take over? You will have a good life. You can be comfortable. We did all this for you.”

From his point of view, that dream made sense. For many families, that is an ideal story. Child studies hard, joins family business, grows it even bigger, everyone is proud. If I had chosen that, nobody would have said I wasted my life.

The financial cost of not following that path is obvious. But the difficult part for me was not actually the money. The real cost was emotional.

Choosing the educator path meant I had to disappoint my father’s expectations. I had to stand in front of my parents, see all their sacrifices, and still say, “I want to be a teacher. I want to continue my master’s. I want to give my life to education and to the next generation.”

I felt fear. Very real fear.

Fear of choosing wrongly.

Fear of regretting when I am older.

Fear of being judged as foolish when others look at the numbers.

But when I pictured myself as an auditor, or as the heir of the family business, my heart felt heavy. When I pictured myself teaching, mentoring, building something in education, something deep in me felt alive. It was a quiet but firm conviction.

A real dream will always bring some form of grief. You say yes to one path, you also say goodbye to another. That goodbye is not easy, especially when the other path looks comfortable and shiny. But if you do not grieve and decide, you remain stuck in between, half living both and fully living none.

In the years that followed, my sense of purpose continued to evolve. At first, it was enough to teach well. Then I began to care about how teachers are trained. Then I started to see how education can shape a city, a nation. That is where the dream of a better Malaysia and a better world through education started to take root.

At some point, staying in the classroom alone felt too small for the dream that was growing in me. I loved the students. I loved teaching. Those were some of the best days of my life. But if I wanted to impact more, I had to step out. That is how the journey of starting a preschool began, then an education group, then more branches and units. Preschool, international school, central kitchen, all built around one idea. To serve the next generation, and to participate in nation building through education.

When people say they admire my life now, or they “envy” it, they usually only see the outcome: A title, some campuses, a team, a certain lifestyle. What they do not see are the numbers I gave up, the sleep I lost, the mistakes I made, the tension within myself and with others, the quiet nights of questioning, and the weight of being responsible for many people’s livelihoods.

Leadership research says people with a strong sense of purpose can carry more stress without burning out. I think that is true. If I did not have clarity about why I am doing this, all the challenges would crush me. Purpose does not remove the load, but it gives you a reason to carry it.

Where the Three Dreams Meet My Life Now

So tonight, as I walked Loki and thought about prom, about my students, about that awkward distance, the question returned.

“Which dream am I living now, and what kind of dream am I inviting them to live?”

Daydream will always be there, tempting us with shortcuts and fantasy.

Artificial dream will always be present, packaged by culture, family and social media.

Real dream will always be harder at the beginning, but it is the only one that can carry your life without breaking it inside.

There is a simple way to test out our dream.

First, check if it is connected to purpose. Not the final, final, fixed purpose of your whole life. Just the honest purpose for this season. What are you good at. What do you enjoy. What does the world need around you. What can people reasonably pay for. The intersection is not always clear, but even a rough sense is better than living fully for someone else’s script.

Second, ask what comfort you are willing to give up. If everything in your dream is comfortable, it is more likely a fantasy than a calling. Real growth always asks you to leave something safe behind.

Third, ask what short term benefit you are prepared to sacrifice. A real dream will cost you something now. Time, reputation, certainty, money, or even relationships with people who cannot understand your decision.

If there is no sacrifice, it is not yet a real dream. It is at best an interest. At worst, it is an illusion.

For me, the decision to become an educator instead of taking the expected path is still one of the clearest turning points in my life. It does not mean everything after that became easy or perfect. It just means I chose a life I can stand in with a clean heart.

I still struggle. I still feel like an outsider in my own school events sometimes. I still miss the classroom. I still question whether I am doing enough for the students, especially when the distance between principal and student feels too wide. But all these questions live within a bigger “yes” that I do not regret.

The quiet reverse

If there is one quiet conclusion from all this, it is this.

The dream that truly belongs to you is not the one that looks the nicest from far. It is the one you are willing to pay for, again and again, with your comfort, your time, your ego and your fears, and still feel that it was worth it.

Daydreams ask for nothing and take your joy.

Artificial dreams ask for effort but drain your soul.

A real dream asks for sacrifice, but over time it returns your life to you, in a form that feels honest.

That is the kind of dream I want my students to wrestle with. That is the kind of dream I want my own children to discover. Not one that makes them look successful, but one that lets them live with a full heart.

And it begins not with a big decision on a stage, but with quiet, honest questions on a night walk, when nobody is watching, and you finally ask yourself,

“Out of these three dreams, which one am I really living now?”