One Day: Stop with the excuses and get out and ride!

One day I’m going to do this, go there, chuck it all, make that change, just you wait and see. Yeah, about that “one day” and its close personal friend, “next year.” Promises we make to ourselves to do things differently, take that leap of faith, or, as I call them, Put-Offs. These are the events, trips, or occasions we keep telling ourselves that we are going to do, when we have the time (maybe when we retire). Some may have made it onto our bucket list of things to do before we die, but who knows when that will be? Wouldn’t it be a bummer to kick the bucket right after making the list? Yet we keep doing this, thinking we have all the time in the world. Guess what, we don’t!

Tomorrow is promised to no one, seize the day!

I am as bad as anyone else, on my bucket list is to ride Highway One from San Diego to Vancouver, with a lot of stops along the way. I can’t tell you how many times I have found something more important to do, like mowing the lawn, or buying chairs at Target. It’s not like I have to do it on my own, I have several friends who say that their game to do it…next year. There it is, the block, never next week, always next year, which, before you know it, is three years and still no adventure road. There are always excuses, mostly no time, or no money. Time isn’t given to us like a birthday present, it’s more like the birthday cake; you have to reach in and take a chunk, and don’t worry, there’s not enough for everyone, that was your “chunk” all along, nobody will miss it but you, if you don’t take the initiative to carve it out. You have to grab time while its here; waiting is wasted in doing “things,” brainless, everyday things.

Money can be found, or earned, if the goal is something you really want to achieve. Memories are the best investment you can make. You can bring them out on the most boring day of your life, you know, when you’re too old or sick to take any trip, and that extra hundred bucks is going to the drug store. Good thing you held on to that instead of spending it on a good time.

I watched my Dad’s entire life end up in a nursing home. He predicted he would last two years there. And that’s all he lasted, they took all his money and possessions and left him with three cardboard boxes of old stained clothes, that’s all for 75 years. I wonder just how many “one days, and next years” fit in three cardboard boxes? Ride on (today).