“I’m going to take time off when…”
“I would love to do that one day…”
“Everything will get better after…”
Ring a bell? It does for me. 👆🏻Those phrases are phrases that I have used many times throughout my life and my career. And I would venture to guess you have used one of these at some point. And that is totally ok. I think part of what humans do naturally is to think ahead. At one point, it was finding shelter or hunting food. Now, it has just taken on a different meaning. Either way, staying present in the moment is one of the most difficult things for a human to pursue. That is probably why Buddhist monks spend lifetimes on this. But beyond just being present, this points to something that we do as well, procrastinate. Procrastinate on dreams, procrastinate on the things that are not enjoyable, procrastinate on the things that we must do to feel fulfilled.
Time is an interesting concept. Time is something that we invented but has brought us more stress than benefit. It forces existence into this exact measurement, despite our world being far from measurable. But one of the other attributes of time is the realization of urgency, which can inspire action. I’m not quite sure why but this sense of urgency has become prevalent in my life. There is always this sense of urgency for me when it comes to running a company. There is a sense of urgency of pace when I’m swimming, seeing if I could maybe go faster or swim better. But I also feel a sense of urgency to spend time on the things that truly matter to me, because time isn’t always on our side. And this isn’t just about my dream of becoming a professional race car driver (I still want to do this), it’s about time with family, enjoying every moment as much as possible. Life is precious and time can be a strong reminder of that.
I’m getting to the age where friends can have health problems, relatives pass away, and I have begun to question my own mortality. It’s that realization that things can change in an instant. They say that a company is a success when it can run well without the founder. They say that, as a founder, you have to plan how the company will run if you were hit by a bus the next day. I always thought it couldn’t happen to me, but that is what everybody thinks until it does. While I believe that a positive mindset is a complete necessity to thriving in life, a humble dose of reality helps enhance that positivity in every moment. It’s because there is a recognition that everything that happens could have had an equal and opposite outcome. But it didn’t. So how lucky are we each and every day? So why waste a moment?
This was a significant turning point when I truly embodied this realization. But the implementation did not happen as quickly. It turns out, the mind is a bit of a battlefield between something new, and something familiar. I think we all have those things in our life that we want to improve and goals that we wish to pursue. But then there is this relationship that we have with feeling protected from harm that prevents any action. It is in this moment that we are all presented with a choice. I believe that the choice that we make in this moment is neither right or wrong, but merely the best decision that we can make with the given information. But the important part is to go into every decision with an eyes wide open approach. Each day, every moment, will not only be different, it will most likely be different than the expectation set in the mind.
I had a goal set for myself almost a year ago. I wanted to swim to the island across from the island that I live on. I didn’t really know anybody and it was a little sketchy to try to swim solo. So I wrote it off as an “in the future” column and have been swimming around a lake. Don’t get me wrong, the lake is beautiful. But there is something different about the sea. It is this vast, undiscovered, beautiful.landscape. I got an invite from a new swimming friend I met at the lake to swim more in the sea. Then, there was a bigger group that was swimming the swim that I always wanted to do. Of course, I agreed. And while the swim ended up being awesome, it was the people that swam that made it one of the fondest memories that I have. Genuine community in the pursuit of the connection with the natural world is what makes life fulfilling for me.
But all of this happened because of a choice. The choice to be present, the choice to pursue something with eyes wide open, and the choice to never waste a moment. The leap is scary, but I haven’t talked to a single person who has regretted it.
As a side note, I’ll probably be posting a few more photo galleries in these as imagery is another way I love to communicate. While I love film, I really love photography in the moment. Sometimes, my brain switches over to doing film and I feel like I don’t fully engage with a given moment. A photo is the best way to capture it because I remember the moment when I looked through the viewfinder. I will still be writing for sure, as I have come to love it, but I wanted to let you know that galleries are coming.
PS. I’ll probably talk about swimming more because I do it a lot. It’s where I process most thoughts from the day.