Maybe you’ve seen the movie with Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson, two men supposedly dying who decide to travel the globe and do all the things they ever wanted to do. They do all kinds of crazy things, live extravagantly (thanks to Jack Nicholson’s character’s wealth), and realize that life without loved ones is hollow. They return home and––spoiler alert––one of them dies, the other one lives many years longer.
An unrealistic movie in many ways, it still holds a grain of truth. We all have things we want to do, but we keep putting them off, saying we’ll do them when retire or “when I have time.”
I get it. Life is busy and doing what we have to do gets in the way of what we want to do. While raising children, your life is not your own as you attend all those ballgames, band performances, gymnastics lessons, plays, church activities, and all the things that we do for our children. No doubt the needs of our families must come first.
But I wonder why we make excuses for not doing some things that we want to do now instead of putting it off. Nothing extravagant, like in the movie. Simple things. Affordable things. Things that require not much more than some of our time.
I was guilty of putting things off until retirement. Oh, I did a few things. I did some painting classes. I took some short trips to places I always wanted to see. And, oh, I did write a few books. But I spent fifteen years wanting to do the St. Jude Half-Marathon in Memphis before I actually did it, thinking I didn’t have enough time to train. I finally was on the Elvis Quiz Show on Elvis Radio (pictured above) a year after I retired. I could have done that before then. So why didn’t I?
Because I made excuses.
We have no guarantees in life. We are not promised tomorrow, and I can’t count the number of people I have known who retired and within weeks were dealing with life-changing illnesses.
My advice, then, is don’t put it off. If it’s simply a matter of rescheduling your time or saving on the side for a special trip, do those things while you have the ability to do so. If fear is holding you back (afraid to apply for that dream job, afraid to fly to someplace you really want to go, afraid of being out of your comfort zone), seek professional help or even the help of friends. Do what you can to live a rich life, a life that doesn’t put off things until it is too late.
I would never suggest that your wants and needs should come before those of your family. I am merely suggesting that maybe it is time for you to start checking off those bucket list items before you’re too old to do them.
As for me, I still have a long list of things I want to do. Number one was the half-marathon. Check. Number two was the Elvis Quiz Show. Check.
Number 3? Be an extra in a movie. Guess I need to check those posts with the Tennessee or Memphis film commissions…
Life As I know it 