Perchance to Dream

From the time I was a teenager, I knew I was meant to be a writer. But no one ever knocked on my door and asked me to write something for them, and career counselors don’t steer students into becoming writers and poets. Accounting? Yes. Law? Sure. Business? Absolutely.

I suppose it’s no small wonder that I, along with many others who were meant to be writers, followed the more traditional path into business. In retrospect, perhaps in my case I was subconsciously opting for a life without rejection. After all, nothing ventured, nothing lost.

Although, I’ve not taken a similarly cautious approach in other areas of my life. As a teenager, I researched love. After three months of haunting the library, I discovered one sentence in one book that said all I needed to know.

“If you want someone to love you, love them first.”

I’ve followed that advice in every relationship ever since and have always been the first to say “I love you.”  That has not caused any woman to run screaming into that sweet good night. In fact, quite the opposite. In my writing, however, I’ve been less forthcoming, choosing the safer path of no rejections.

During the past few weeks I’ve read several books. Most recently, Wild by Cheryl Strayed, which is deservedly a New York Times Bestseller, having sold more than four million copies.
The author writes of her adventures hiking the Pacific Coast Trail. For me, the greatest takeaway from the book was the underlying message: Do it. Stop dreaming about it, and just do it.

As Shakespeare put it, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in the stars, but in ourselves that we are underlings.”

My message to you, and to myself, is this: if you have postponed anything in your life that is important to you, stop dreaming about it and just do it.

I knew a CPA who, at age 50, quit his practice, bought a sailboat, and spent the next several years sailing around the world with his wife. He told me that after being a husband and a father, it was the best decision he ever made.

The magic is in each of us to follow our bliss, to live our lives to the fullest. But as Martha, a dear friend, wrote to me more than fifty years ago, before committing suicide at age 31, “I have for so long not been true to a self that must be somewhere, I fear that I have lost it.”

I wish I could share with Martha the words attributed to George Sands, “It is never too late to become the person you were meant to be.”

I agree. Whatever it is you feel you should be doing that you haven’t yet done, take action.

Your life is far too important to leave it to “Perchance.”

Alan