What are you waiting for?

Recently I’ve been remembering the way I used to think, and I just had to share these thoughts with you.

Now maybe some of you will resonate with this, I used to say things like, oh yes I’d love to do that course, I’d love to learn photography as a hobby, I’d love to learn how to paint properly, maybe learn how to do fantasy art, I’d love to travel more… I’d love to, I’d love to, I’d love to…. Wait for it… sorry, I cringe when I say this…WHEN…. I’m older, when I’m richer, when I retire… cringe, that’s at least 20 years away from now! And at least 25 years have passed, since I first started using the ‘WHEN’ word! Scary!

I have gone through some amazing shifts in mental attitude, but this realization has brought me great freedom and joy. Perhaps it was the practice of meditation and mindfulness that really brought it home to me. It was the practicing of living in the ‘now’ and making sense of what that could mean for me in everyday life that clicked with me. If I was to really live in the ‘now’, then all the excuses to not do something NOW would have to go wouldn’t they? Well that’s how I reasoned with it anyway!

Okay, I can hear some of you already, sayings things like ‘yeah that’s all right if you win a few million, and then you can make your dreams come true’. But I’d like to say to you, that it doesn’t have to be that way. We can step towards our dreams today, if even only in a small way.

When I drew up my new blueprint for my life ‘NOW’, I realised that I don’t have a lot of money right now, but that I do have a big interest, an enthusiasm, a passion and a desire to do these things, so a little thing like money won’t stop me getting to where I want to go. I learnt a valuable lesson recently, when I complained to someone that I couldn’t afford something, their wise reply was, ‘you can if you put by ---- - every week, it just means that it will take you longer’. Oh yes the child in us rebels at this, we cry, and stamp our feet in a tantrum and scream ‘but I want it now!’ But if we are patient, we can actually get what we want, either by putting a small sum of money away every week until it accumulates, or by reading a small amount of information every day about a subject we are interested in, or by doing a small affordable course that will lead us to our big goal in the end. Or by trawling the internet, there are many sources of free information to be obtained. Libraries are great places too!

I’ve started doing small courses; they’ll lead me in the right direction. I’ve started taking photographs, no I don’t have a big fancy camera, but I have a camera, and I’m using it, now. I’ve even paid off some bills, bit by bit. So are you going to put YOUR excuses away? I need to ask you, ‘What are YOU waiting for?