Eva Bradley: Value your reality it's their dream

Bright lights and big dreams are the preserve of the young. Sometimes, as you get older, it is easy to forget what it feels like to have the future laid out before you like a lolly scramble of twinkling stars thrown down from heaven. To believe that you can reach out and grab any dream you like and call it your own is perhaps one of life's most intoxicating drugs.

This week I made my annual pilgrimage to my alma mater to speak to the Year 13 girls about career options.

I used to talk about the ducking and diving and struggling and striving that comes with being a journalist. Thanks to Andrea Vance and the fabulous web of political intrigue currently surrounding her, it's a career that sells itself.

These days, I talk about life as a photographer. I do it because I passionately believe I have the best job in the world and would recommend it to anyone. But I also do it because although the purpose is to help the girls, by default each year it gives my own sometimes struggling life-support machine a bit of a recharge.

There's nothing quite like a mortgage and a stack of responsibilities to take the fun out of any job, and the slow march of time and the often monotonous way it slides by can cause any of us to forget what it was like to push open the door and see the whole wide world waiting on the other side.

The girls come to the careers seminar to be inspired about the future. I go to seek inspiration from the past - to look into their eyes and see a reflection of myself half a lifetime ago, when optimism and enthusiasm were the common currency.

As we grow up and grow old, some of that gets lost along the way. Sometimes all it takes to rediscover it is to be reminded.

When I wake up each morning at 6am the first thought that fires in my groggy brain is: bloody work. How many of us would give anything just to switch off the alarm clock and go back to sleep for half an hour or maybe even six months?

But, instead, we get up, we drag our sorry selves into the fray of commerce and employment in all its forms and we give it our best shot until lunchtime and then the end of the day.

Then we schlep back home, glad to be rid of the working day and trying not to think about the fact that another one is waiting for us just around the corner.

Familiarity builds contempt no matter what. The most beautiful woman in the world can become just the boring wife on the far side of the bed if you see her often enough, and perhaps the only reason we always crave chocolate is because we so seldom allow ourselves to have it.

Sometimes we just need to step back from the coal face and remember that the things we take for granted or come to resent are the bright stars that somewhere, some young person is reaching up to grab.

If you can forgive me for quoting my favourite poets two weeks running, W.B. Yeats spread his dreams under our feet, and begged us to tread softly, lest we tread on his dreams.

We'd all do well to remember that the nightmare we think we are living (and working) through is still a dream to those who haven't yet held it in their hands.

Eva Bradley is an award-winning columnist.