That’s the name of a great book by a great lady named Wendy Dale – she took the time to email me back and forth several times last year when I emailed her with praise for her book.
One line I just re-read struck me:
“It was as if I had woken up one day with a sudden realization: My life begins now. Up until that point, my life had felt more like a dress rehersal than the actual performance. For twenty five years, it was as if I had been waiting for the good part to start. I liked time passing. To me, each year was an investment, something that would be useful later on but that had yet to do me any good. I tried life on, but had yet to grow into it. My life had been a Triple A training bra.”
What a great thing to realize. I think this is how most people – especially college students – live their lives these days. Internships aren’t an experience to enrich our lives now, they’re there to pay off in the future. Jobs aren’t supposed to make our lives happy now, they’re just to pay for school – really, to pay off later. Classes aren’t enjoyable now, they’re just for tomorrow when the knowledge will kick in.
Bull. We should live our lives in a way that makes known our ultimate goal: To live out loud. To be. To create.
So, though I’m not exactly sure how to do this, exactly? I say screw it. Screw doing things just for future value. Suck the marrow out of life, but careful not to choke on the bone. Carpe Diem. Sieze the day. (Oh, Dead Poet’s Society.) I guess I’m just tired of stocking up points in the “for future life” bank. I want to cash those points in and build a better life now. Doesn’t that set me up for the future? If I’m happy, and truly learning and experiencing and loving, doesn’t that, in turn, help me grow better for tomorrow?
Isn’t the ultimate deposit to the bank of the future really a withdrawal for immediate use today?
