I was about to say “close your eyes”, but then I realised you wouldn’t be able to read the rest of the instructions…
Okay, keep your eyes open, but let your inner mind drift as you read this. Imagine you wake up tomorrow and you’re 90 years old. Or 80. Or 70. Basically older than you are right now. A lot older.
I’m not saying you can’t do anything at 70, or 80, or 90. I’d actually say if you feel like doing something, do it, whatever age you are or wherever you’re at in life.
But what I’m hoping to instil in you (or rather stir up) through this exercise, is a sense of urgency. Do you think, at 90 years of age, you’re going to look back and think about how you wish you’d waited longer to do something? About how you were so glad you waited for the perfect time (which doesn’t exist, by the way) to start that thing that changed everything?
And what if you never even started? Do you want to look back and go: “Hey, where did my life go? I didn’t do that huge thing I really wanted to do yet.”
Because that’s what’s gonna happen. If there’s something you really want to do, if it’s burning in your soul and you know you just have to do it in your life or you’re going to feel like a bat that never flew (I don’t know why a bat), why aren’t you doing it? Because seriously, if you do not take the plunge and do it, or even start at some point soon, you will wake up at 90 and realise you wasted however many decades not doing it.
And let me also say, “soon” does not exist. The very definition of “soon” means it will never arrive. “Soon” is always in the future, and the future is never the present – ergo, it never happens. You want to wake up at 90 and have done something? You have to do it now. That is how this crazy time travel of life works. Everything you want to have happened by then, has to happen right now.
I didn’t make the rules. But I will yell them at you until you get it.
DO. IT. NOW.
I don’t know what “it” is. If you need to tell someone, then sure, let me know, but the only important factor is you DO IT. Now.
Maybe it’s a bungee jump – go book it right now. Maybe it’s starting a novel – start that first page, that first sentence, that first word, right now. Maybe it’s making up with someone or telling someone you love them or coming out or booking a trip to somewhere you’ve always wanted to go – do it all now. Maybe it’s quitting your job or starting a business or creating a blog where you remind random strangers on the internet that they need to follow their dreams this very second or they’re going to wake up at 90 and wonder what happened.
Whatever it is, you gotta do it now. Not soon. Not even tomorrow. Because tomorrow becomes tomorrow, which becomes tomorrow, and then tomorrow, and then before you know it, you’re 90 again and tomorrow never became today.
It’s the ‘soon’ time travel all over again.
The only cure for all this – and you’re probably getting it now – is to start today.
Otherwise you’re 90 and you missed your best chance.
Tomorrow never happens. But today’s right here now.
Leave a Reply