Doing your darnedest to really live

The coolest stuff doesn't just happen Someday, or by accident.

Here’s a whopper for you: My great-grandmother’s first husband was struck and killed by lightning at the young age of 32. He was waiting out a hailstorm, sheltering in the doorway of his stable with a team of horses, when a bolt of lightning struck him and one of the horses. Talk about an abrupt end to a good life.

I’ve recently been thinking about this story. Something about the suddenness of his exit from life has me thinking about an all-too-human tendency to put off until…someday… the things we hope to get around to. He didn’t, but we sometimes sure do.

“Someday, I’ll go to France.”

“Someday, I want to open a dog boarding and training center.”

“Someday, I want to take piano lessons.”

“Someday, I’ll perform my music publicly.”

“Someday, I’ll make reading a priority.”

“Someday, I want to get back to the novel I’ve started writing.”

But life doesn’t wait for Someday, and not one of us is guaranteed a Someday. Except for apparently my Grandma Barbara. She’s 95 years old and still living a full, contributing, social life. The rest of us, though—we just don’t know.

I don’t share this to encourage everyone to do what I did: “Quit your job! Sell your house! Buy a one-way ticket to Rome! Travel for two years!”

There’s a lot to be said for contentment and being grateful for your present life, but when you feel yourself going soft in that life, you’ve simply got to move. Waiting for life to start is one of the lamest things we do—don’t you think? Just start it already and fling that door wide open.

Book the ticket.

Outline your next step toward your boarding and training center.

Schedule a lesson.

Contact a local coffee shop about performing.

Keep a book in the car so you can read instead of scroll while you wait places.

Block out thirty minutes this week to crack your novel back open.

Because here’s the thing: You never just “get around” to the coolest stuff you're putting off until Someday. You start making it happen, right now. And if the wrong, fatal kind of lightning strikes, well, at least it caught you in the act of doing your darnedest to really live.

P.S. What is something you long to do Someday, and what could you start doing this week to prioritize it?