Some of us are expert procrastinators. We leave everything to the last minute. It might be a project at work. Or we may have promised a friend or a family member that we would do something. And maybe we get so late a start that we do the job poorly – or maybe not at all.
And sometimes, we make promises to ourselves that we’ll do something for ourselves – lose weight, get more exercise, get out of a bad relationship, look for a better job, move to a better climate – and we somehow never get around to it. Time passes. Nothing changes much. And we’re never quite happy, but not unhappy enough finally to get off our butt a nd make something happen.
How bad does your life have to get before you finally make a change and take positive action? Do you have to wait until you are laid-off from your dead-end job before you start to look for a new one? Do you have to wait until you are 100 pounds overweight before you finally change your diet and exercise habits?
Will you wait until your Father or Mother is on their death bed before you tell them that you love them? Do you really have to wait until your kids are grown to get out of a dysfunctional marriage? Do you have to get into a near-fatal car accident before you realize that you don’t want to keep doing the same thing everyday – and you want to instead live your life doing things that really matter to you?
An acquaintance of mine, Cara, has a blog called 17000days.com – the number of days she figured she could expect to live from that point on. That’s a finite number of days. That’s all we have. And the point she was trying to make – was that she wanted to savor each and every day – because one of those days will be her last.
It’s OK to live the same life every day – if it’s fulfilling and meaningful to you. It’s another thing to live the same life every day – when you are not terribly happy about what you are doing.
We are all going to die someday. Some people know they are going to die because they have cancer or another disease and their doctor tells them approximately how much longer they have to live. Other people die suddenly from accidents or forces of nature. Some people are dead already – and they don’t even know it. They are alive, but they are not really “living” with any deliberate thought or purpose.
If all of us are going to die someday, why should we wait for anything to start really living the way we want to live? What will it take for you to decide that today is the day for you to start moving in a new direction?
