Tomorrow Never Comes

Do your work, and I shall know you. Do your work, and you shall reinforce yourself. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Take a moment, step back from your concerns, and focus on one thing: You have one life to achieve everything you’ve ever wanted. Sounds simple, but when you really focus on it, let it seep into your consciousness, you realize you only have about 100 years to get every single thing you’ve ever wanted to do. No second chances. This is your only shot. Suddenly, this means you should have started yesterday. No more waiting for permission or resources to start. Today is the day you make the rest of your life happen. Write down one thing you’ve always wanted to do and how you will achieve that goal. Don’t be afraid to be very specific in how you’ll achieve it: once you start achieving, your goals will get bigger and your capability to meet them will grow.

One hundred years, gentle readers, to achieve everything that you hope to achieve. Imagine that. But here's the thing that Colin Wright is wrong about. Most of us don't get 100 years. Not from birth to end of life. Not of active years. Not of a life where we can really make our own decisions.

Sure, some people are lucky enough to have been raised in an environment where they can really be themselves, from an early age, where they can assert their creativity and their entrepreneurship. Where they are allowed to put themselves out their. Where they can fail. Most, your MatchGirl supposes, however, are not.

So... that means we have so much less time than Colin supposes. We have ... maybe 60 years. Seems like a long time when you're young, I guess. I know that time has a funny way of seeming to be very different than it actually is. One hundred years seems like a very very long time. So does sixty. But think for a moment, how quickly a year passes. You blink and suddenly the month is over and you're not sure where it has gone. A year, even when it feels it is so long at times, is not long in reality. It's over before you know it.

Your MatchGirl is a master procrastinator. She started young and she's carried it on well into her adult-hood. It's something that drives me crazy in myself and even crazier when I see it in others. Because, while from time to time I'll leave things till the last moment, I do really love to plan, to make sure that everything will be all set, to make sure that things are taken care of. It's easy to do this when it's your day job. It's easy to do this when it's an event your planning (especially when working with others). It's less simple when it's something that just for you.

My take-away for this prompt then, dear readers, is that I will pay as much attention to planning for a doing the things that are "just" for me as I do to those things associated with my paying gig. The projects that are mine are mine. I need to own them. To dedicate myself to them. To push them forward. And, eventually, to share them with you. I can't do this if I'm constantly putting them off until tomorrow. We all know, after all, that tomorrow never comes....