Me writing about life being short and suggesting that you need to live the life you want to live now, is a bit of the pot calling the kettle black. But bear with me.
My husband Ed and I waited until our son was nearly in college before we pulled the trigger on what was our dream of country living and building a more sustainable life (we each have different interpretations of what this really looks like; but, by and large, we are on the same page and will likely get even more so over time).
We are not spring chickens and are likely in the latter phase of our lives. My one nagging thought is that we should have done it sooner – a lot sooner – early in our marriage sooner – right after our son was born sooner. Why wait?? All of us only have our one life to live; the end may be out there a ways or it may be sooner than we think; we just don’t know.
Here were a couple of our more significant “excuses” for our waiting; these were the thought processes that we played over and over in our heads and kept us from finding a way to move forward toward our broader life goal(s) despite feeling called to a simpler country life:
· We wanted to be near extended family while our son was young – for both support and to keep our son close in his relationships with his cousins / aunts / uncles / grandparents. When he was older, he was “too indoctrinated” with his friends and school that we didn’t want to uproot him. Bottom line in retrospect – we just weren’t imaginative enough. Bottom line – we may have lived too much for him and not enough for us (I believe he would have been just as well adjusted of a fine young man with strong family values as he is now had we made the move sooner).
· We wanted to save more money. Being that both Ed and I are fiscally conservative, we kept plugging away at saving and didn’t want to give up the security of our city jobs. And while I’m not in any way suggesting that that’s not a good approach, I’m reflecting that maybe taking a little more risk earlier on wouldn’t have been such a bad thing. We still would have been savers after all.
I don’t like the idea of having regrets (it’s all about how you frame your past decisions; acceptance; learning and growing); however, I do want to suggest to all those who are putting off doing what they feel called to do (whatever that is!) – don’t.
Do it now. Start taking little steps to address your calling now. Call upon your creativity and imagination to get you past the hurdles; it’s all within you. You will be O.K. because you are you; so, listen to yourself and those yearnings that are uniquely yours. Do it now – don’t put things off or rationalize your time away. Rather, move forward down your path with thoughtfulness and planning for those hurdles you feel you face. Life is short so make the most of it in the way that’s most true to you. The rest will take care of itself.
Comments