“You may say I am a dreamer but I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us. And the world will live as one"--John Lennon, a famous English musician and founder of the Beatles. To some extent, dreams are the souls of our life, as they lay the foundations for our aspirations. As we all go through the cycles of failures and success, and sadness and unhappiness, our dreams are what motivate us to achieve. Indeed, John Lennon is not the only dreamer; we have inherited a world full of dreams turned into reality by people who thought of big ideas and attempted impossible things. We have inherited a world landmarked by the printing press, three-dimensional movies, space exploration, and smart phones—technologies born from the dreams of people. However, before we can dream we have to believe strongly in an idea, after which we can dream and then inspire others. There are a multitude of examples of dreamers and their subsequent inventions throughout history; however, international peacemaker Malala Yousafzai, beauty pageant winner Nina Devalauri, and famous entrepreneur Steve Jobs all stood out to me as a diverse embodiment of the three principles of life: believe, dream, and inspire.

Malala Yousafzai, a twelve-year old Pakistani student, fought for girls’ rights to education and voiced her opinions on the dangerous Taliban's opposing actions. She strongly believed that all women had a right to learn and be educated, and this belief gave way to her dream for a better, more equal society in Pakistan. This dream is what motivated her to speak up and continue fighting for female rights. Her heroic story of survival after an assassination attempt by the Taliban had the world tuned into her dreams; as a result, tremendous awareness and support was created for her cause. Today, many across the world are inspired by her resilient dream, and she has been recognized by many organizations including the Nobel Peace Prize committee.

Throughout high school, we are expected to always think about our  future. Society promotes well accepted careers and well established good living; however, what society doesn't realize is that to be successful in life, we can't only have our eyes set on our predetermined career, we need to be pursuing our interests and living with our passions. The Miss USA pageant winner Ms. Nina Devlauri broke all the dogmas and changed the notion of what a girl in this pageant should look like. Miss Nina Devlauri, the first Indian-American to win this pageant, not only tenaciously fulfilled her dream but also opened the door for the new faces of our changing society to dream of being accepted and honored  in the true American spirit.  As Eleanor Roosevelt pointed out, “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams." Miss Devlauri believed that she individually had the potential to win, and in accomplishing her dream, she has inspired many other culturally diverse girls to pursue similar dreams.

           No one else can prove the power of dreams greater than Steve Jobs. His life was a testimony of triumphs and failures to develop his dreams into tangible technologies. Jobs imagined a device so small but powerful in our hands, and though he was proved wrong over and over again, he was certain to maintain his vision. He once said “Our time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. And most importantly have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.'' Steve Jobs is a powerful inspiration to millions of people, as he had so many barriers from stopping his dream, yet he persevered, fought for his beliefs and achieved his dream.
Like Yousafazi, Devlauri, and Jobs, I too have a dream. A cause personally important to me is the low number of women in technology and engineering fields. A recent statistic showed that out of a room of twenty-five engineers only three with will be women. Science and technology are shaping our lives today, and our future will depend on how we create opportunities using them. If  more women participate and create a voice in the fields of science and technology, then they will contribute to new inventions and play a greater hand in our future.  I hope to see more women in the sciences and have taken steps to accomplish this dream. In my high school, I started the Girls Tech Club, with the sole mission of teaching girls computer science skills as to prepare them for a future education and career in technology. If my dream becomes successful, I too will have the capability to inspire other women to study STEM subjects. However, I am not alone in my dream, as the millions of people who walk on Earth all have diverse dreams, and our diversity leads us to become a great society.

Every day, in high school, around two thousand teenagers walk besides me in the hallways, eat next to me in the cafeteria, and sit beside me in our school rallies. We all are going to the same high school, taking classes, and doing extracurricular activities; yet we all have different dreams of becoming leaders in today's society. As I walk around campus during lunch, I see many people's diverse dreams. I walk across the courtyard, and peer into the art studio, I see Emily, a girl who spends her time during school and afterschool making art, painting beautiful pieces. Her enjoyment of making art rooted from her initial desire to join the arts program with no previous art experience before, which led to her passion for art and her strong belief in the beauty of art, and finally of her dream to change the world through her artwork. Another boy, Thomas, who runs past me, rushing to play basketball with his friends, loves the thrill of sports and works hard to play three varsity sports a year. Most people think he is a hot-headed "jock" and only few know that under his initial appearance he is very hard-working, studious, and wants to grow up to be a sports physical therapist. Like Emily, Thomas' dream formed from his initial desire to take part of the medical career program at school, that led to his realization of his interests and love to help people who have sports injuries. As you can see, my high school is foaming with hundreds of kids, who all have different interests and different dreams, yet all of us come together with the same idea of desiring to fulfill that dream and of making a huge impact on the world. We, as high school students, are the rising generation, and we come together, to rise up, to believe in our ourselves, to change the world through fulfilling our dreams, and to inspire to be the future Yousafazi, Devlauri, or Jobs.