I'm going to warn you before you read this article that it might be a little too heavy. So, if you're used to reading these before you start your day, you might want to put this one aside until later.
If you keep going, know — I warned you.
Here it goes...
Did you know that we're all going to die one day?
That house you live in right now is going to be occupied by another family. The car you meticulously keep clean will one day be taken to a salvage yard for parts. The clothing you stress out about wearing will be in landfills. In two or three generations, your name may come up in a family tree, but very few people will remember you or talk about you.
It sounds heavy, but it's the truth. Everything we're holding onto so tightly right now is temporary. The clock is ticking on all of us.
Life is short, yet we all sit around stressing out about stuff that doesn't matter, while that clock ticks, and we still fail to live the life we truly want to live.
So when people ask me, "Should I do this thing?" I say yes.
On a call last week, someone said to me, "I want you to be hard on me, and almost talk me out of this thing." I did the opposite — I talked them into it. Because why not? What are we all doing on this earth if our time here isn't impactful?
If I told you that you only had five years left, would that change things for you? You see, the thing is, you behave in a way that says time doesn't matter. You operate in a world where you assume you have the next forty or fifty years. You might. You might not.
So what would change for you if you didn't have that much time? Would you start that business? Would you change your miserable job? Would you care less about what people thought? Would you take the risks you've been afraid to take?
I committed to posting more content on Instagram. I've done it, but not as much as I could. I've bought the lights, the camera mounts, the filters, the editing apps — and yet I still haven't posted as much as I should. And you know why? Because that dumb little voice in the back of my head says, "Are you sure? Do you have something valuable to say? What if people take your content wrong?"
If you told me I only had a few years left, then forget all of it. Send it. But even I operate with this mindset from time to time — that it's ok, I have time, I need to be intentional and thoughtful.
What a dumb statement. We don't have time. We have opportunities. Opportunities to make an impact now. Tomorrow isn't a given. Why are you operating like it is?
Nobody ever changed the world by waiting for the perfect moment, or by worrying about what someone thought. The world was changed by people who have no fear about anything other than going forth and living their best life while making an impact.
So while you're sitting around beating yourself up about something that won't matter one day — just remind yourself, you might not have time to execute it if you don't get started now.