计算机学院 M.T Dreamer 协会,Dreamer

1982 – Istanbul, Turkey.

I was walking back from school on a beautiful spring day. I noticed a little macramé shop which must have been just opened. After watching through the window for a while, I opened the door and walked in. There were a few ladies working and making beautiful things for their customers; hammocks, planters, light shades and so on. I was fascinated!

A lady looked up and asked if I was ok. I told her how beautiful the items they were making and if she was the owner. When she confirmed that she was, I asked her if she had a job for me. She stared at me, confused, then calmly asked why I needed a job and if my parents knew. I told her it was so that I could pay for my education and I was doing it to help my parents. Smiling, she told me to come back the next day after school and start. I realised afterwards that she didn’t need anyone; she just wanted to help the 8 year old girl in faded school uniform who desperately needed money. This was the beginning of my working life. I worked there for three years. My first “weekly salary” paid for a t-shirt my little sister wanted. The rest paid for everything I needed for school.

3 years later, the shop closed as the lady moved away. I had to find another job so almost forced a video cassette (and yes I am that old!) shop owner to give me a job. I would go there after school, around 6pm and stay until 11pm; doing my homework for the next day or study for the exams there. Soon, the owner trusted me enough to give me the keys and allowed me to manage the shop which was losing money due to freeloader neighbours and friends of his. Within 6 months I turned the shop around and made it profitable again. I was just 12 at the time. By the time I left the shop to start college at the age of 15, the business was booming as we made an agreement with the coffee shop next door to show trailers from our movies to encourage more sales, which I sort of pushed the guy to agree, for a price off course; free movie rentals twice a week :)

I remember people sometimes giving us food and hand me downs but not everyone was nice. There were taunts, being excluded from games, bullying, being punished for things we didn’t do, and receiving no apology when the real culprit was found. I remember being told by some "adults", that the best thing “people like us” could hope for would be to find a husband with a job so that we could afford to rent a house and put food on the table. We weren’t a bad family; we were poor due to my father’s friends tricking him into spending all his savings on them and then losing his job. There were many people like us around us. I did not understand why people treated under-privileged people like they did not matter.

You may wonder, why I am writing this. Definitely not to blow my own trumpet, or for the likes on LinkedIn.The answer is simple; I want people to never stop dreaming. Never allow people to break your spirit, and believe me they will try. Don’t let them tell you that you are just a dreamer; remember every good idea/invention was someone’s dream. Don’t be afraid of following your dreams, if you don’t follow them they will just stay as dreams. If you work hard with your end goal in mind, you have every chance of achieving it. If you don't try, you will never know. Only you can make your dreams a reality.

Every time you feel like giving up, think about the little 8 year old girl in the macramé shop; following her dreams of getting a good education so that she can dream bigger. At the age of 16, my dream was not having fancy clothes, latest gadgets, or whatever was trendy at that time; it was to provide my parents with a house of their own and look after them so that they never had to worry about money again. I achieved that dream before the age of 30!I don’t need that husband with a job to feel content; I am happy with what I achieved by myself, and where I am.

Be passionate about everything you do, believe in yourself, trust your intuition, be authentic, take care of your people, never do anything for the sake of doing it, stand up for what you believe in even if it makes you unpopular. More importantly; be yourself.

Dreamers can’t be tamed – Paulo Coelho

Yasemin