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This flat, pitiless challenge came from Seth Godin at a leadership conference a few years ago. I tripped across it in Evernote and gulped – just like I did when I first heard it.
It was especially apropos that I should find it again because recently I had a conversation with a good friend about the dream of living and making art somewhere else in the world.
It is not the first time we’ve had this conversation. But, to date, nothing has ever come of it.
Since this is my story, not hers, I can only account for my own excuses. There have been many but they grow more feeble with each passing year.
More important than the rapidly-dissolving excuses is the way my sense of time has shifted. There are fewer somedays available. Suddenly the expanse of years I’ve spent being sensible and safe seem unbearable – especially when I think of another 20 years of deferring my dreams.
It will never be easier. There will never be a guarantee that the new life will be anything like I hoped. I’ve often heard parents say that there’s no perfect time to have a child. You just do it.
Perhaps I’ve been waiting for the metaphorical equivalent of getting knocked up by a dream, forcing me past my excuses and fears and into the life worthy of my calling.
There is another way.
There is the intentional, reverent conception and gestation of a dream. There is the tending and nurturing of it as it learns to stand on its own two feet. There is the fierce protection of it from silly excuses and unwarranted criticism. There is putting the dream ahead of everything else, and being willing to die for it if need be.
I’m just about sick enough of being stuck. It’s time to create.