At our meeting on 28 August we were treated to a talk by Dr Dragos Bratasanu from the Eastern Hutt Rotary Club on the 'Pursuit Of Dreams'. The 'Pursuit Of Dreams' is also the title of his recently published book.
Dr Dragos was born in Romania in the last part of the communist regime. His early upbringing took place amongst some poverty. Although the regime provided the basics of life, food and shelter, they also took away all other freedoms. Dragos said it took him a long time to understand what his environment was doing to him and that it is the environment that produces the result.
He eventually made his way to a job at NASA but still suffered from a lack of money, having to read books by surreptiously reading them in book shops. Now in his mid 20s he began to ask himself, what is his dream? This crystallised into a dream to visit the North and South poles. This was a serious ambition given that he had only $200 per month. He gave himself a year to try all his options also deciding to wait until the last day of the year before evaluating his decisions. By leveraging all his options he was able to fly from Argentina to the South pole. This led to an invitation to go to the North pole flying from 24 hours of light to 24 hours of darkness.
Returning to Romania he spent time travelling to various monastries coming to realise that your dreams are about your unique expression in spirit and truth. When dreams come from the heart they will always working in the long run. Dragos played a short movie in support of the idea that there is nothing that we can't achieve and that it is never too late to start.
Dragos dealt with the reasons he moved on from jobs at NASA and Telecom in pursuit of his dreams. He has a strong concept of service to others (similar to Rotary) and believes that service to others is always repaid.