You would have indisputably heard of the song 'Dream On' by Kurt Cobain's 'all the rage' band 'Nirvana'. That song inspires us to dream about life, work, play… anything and everything under the sun. Since this is a career site, the question that we all raise next is "Can we afford to dream about the perfect job?"

What is the "ideal" job that anyone can have? It's a question every youngster will ask one day or another. The answer they receive will make a profound impact on the rest of their lives. Most people have different ideas of a perfect job. Part of me thinks that this is the world's greatest career question that no career professional has been able to solve and no two sides have been able to agree on.

From time to time, people who are pursuing a career that is a prolongation of their current career path, surreptitiously have always thought about landing a "dream" job that seems absolutely off-the-track. You know, the kind of job or position that we all seem to start thinking about when we start daydreaming about our futures or when we find ourselves indulging in that common practice of thinking about a perfect world where we can have any job we want. During those times, many people will often think about a job or career that is very different from the career they are presently in. In some cases, it can be a job that is a total 180-degree alteration in direction of their career path.

What do you do about that "secret dream job"? Should you write it off - lock, stock and barrel - as dreaming, and not take any steps to achieve it? Or do you drop everything and throw all of your efforts into working towards that dream position, as 'out of reach' as it may seem? Let me make a proposition. Don't ignore those feelings...but don't be ruled by them either. Take an approach I call 'watchful dream pursuing'.

So what is watchful dream pursuing? When you are steadfast on making a job change, identify a position that is the next logical step in your current career path. Also research your dream job or career. Write down the detailed aspects and learn what it would take to lucratively land a job in your dream career. Also identify the skills and comprehension you need to continue to be successful in it. Then spend the best part of your time and efforts pursuing the job that is the logical next step in your current career path. At the same time, do your watchful dream pursuing by committing 10-20% of your spare time to pursue your dream job. Conduct your research and learn about the dream job or career. Learn as much about it as you can. Then and only then will you fully understand if it is truly out of reach.

By this, you will be devoting the greater part of your efforts toward a reasonable and liable outcome. You will also feel good about devoting some of your time towards making your dream job an actuality. As you learn more about the dream job or career, you will gain a better understanding as to how tangible and realistic such an opportunity may be for you. If you discover that the dream job is within reach, start making small steps in your spare time to align yourself with the dream position.

This approach will keep your career moving onward. You want to evade devoting all of your time and efforts into pursuing a dream job that you might never be able to accomplish. You might also be pleasantly surprised that someday your dream job may be well within reach. You will get a psychological boost by knowing that you are taking steps - however small - towards pursuing your dream. Overlooking those clandestine desires altogether may lead to dejection, dissatisfaction, leaving you feeling that you are missing out on something. Without devoting at least a little bit of time to appreciate the dream job better, you will never know what it could have been like.

Now most of you would surely like to know, what my "dream job" is, right? For the longest time, I've wanted to be a TV critic, mostly because I would get paid for watching television, and I could watch as much as I wanted (not like now, where I watch just a little bit, and don't get paid a paisa)! What this boils down to is that every person wants an exceedingly beautiful and salubrious environment for his "dream job", with ideal conditions all over. Stay realistic but keep dreaming. Who knows, you might just end up in a position where you never thought you would be!