Right now, I’m reading my kids The Wilderking Trilogy. In the first book, one of the characters, Bayard the Truthspeaker tells Aidan a teenager who has dreams of being great, “live the life that unfolds before you.”
That line stood out to me.
Often, I don’t live the life in front me. My life becomes a series of choices to get ahead, move on to the next thing, make more money, have more opportunity, maximize this appointment, this chance, right now. I’m constantly focused on what I can do now and miss the life right in front of me.
Now, I’m all for goals and planning ahead, but in our effort to do it all, I feel like we miss life right now.
What if you have a goal to start a business, a church, write a book, go back to school? You could do it now, but what if you did it in 10, 20 or 30 years because it doesn’t work right now, you have young kids. What if that happened? Would you be a failure? Would you feel like a failure?
If so, why?
We get so amazed at people who do great things in their 20’s but forget that people do great things in their 80’s.
I know, we aren’t promised tomorrow and I’m not saying we put things off that we should do today.
But often, the thing we should do today is the thing right in front of us, not always, but usually.
Before you get ahead of yourself and go charging down the field of life to hit your next goal, conquer your next thing, start a new project, become great or famous. What if, the life you are supposed to live right now is the one right in front of you. Not extraordinary or different, but rather ordinary and right there. What if great things are for later so that you don’t miss now?
