Do It Now
“Whatever you think you can do or believe you can do, begin it. Action has magic, grace and power in it.” —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“I’ll learn that music someday.”
“I’ll get around to it next week.”
“I’ll start that project when I’ve got more time.”
If there’s one thing that connects humans from nearly every part of the planet, it’s our tendency to procrastinate. Every one of us has, at one time, pushed dreams to the future and consoled ourselves with the platitude that we’ll get around to it “someday.” Sadly, for many people, that magical someday never comes. That’s the point when we stop saying “someday” and start saying “if only.”
“If only” has to be one of the saddest phrases in the English language. It speaks to a lifetime of missed opportunity and deferred dreams. We watch and listen as our elders express regret for things they passed by in their lives, but somehow we forget that we, too, are running on borrowed time and that if we continue to push our dreams to some magical point in the future when all the stars will align in our favor, we’re heading straight down the path to an old age full of “if only.”
Following dreams comes at a cost. There will be sacrifices. Many times we see the cost of following a dream and we use it as an excuse to avoid action. This is the moment where we need to reverse our thinking and look, instead, at the cost of not following our hearts. Economists refer to the price of inaction as “opportunity cost.” When there’s something we wish to do, or something unpleasant we know we must do in order to be healthier, we owe it to ourselves to focus on the opportunity cost of inaction because frequently, that cost is much higher than the momentary sacrifice of choosing to act.
When I was in my 20s, my best friend from high school died of AIDS. When we cleaned out his home, we found letters he wrote to all of us in the last few weeks of his life. In addition to messages of love, he listed all the things he wished he’d had time to do had he not died so young. Today, as I listen to my aging parents, I hear the same sort of regrets. The message this holds for me is simple: do it now. Play the pieces you can play while you still can. Take the trips you can take before you can’t travel. Embrace those you love before they’re gone. Take that walk, and eat healthier meals before health problems arise. Accept the reality of mortality and use it to do the things you are put on this planet to do before it’s too late.
So begin. Make a list of the things your heart wants you to do and do them now. Start that piece today. Begin that project today. Embrace the power of action, and remember that failure (if it occurs) allows us to replace “if only” with “at least I tried.” Mistakes will be made. Some dreams won’t be realized. So what? At least at the end of life we’ll be able to look back and have a reservoir of great stories rather than un-lived dreams. That’s a recipe for a rich life.
Happy New Year!