Making Every Moment Count

“Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.” (James 4:14)

To the best of my knowledge, I’m healthy and hearty, but I have been spending an inordinate amount of time struggling to concede my age…and, maybe something more detrimental to my mental and emotional well-being: fixating on chances missed throughout this lifetime. It’s that “if-I-knew-then-what-I-know-now” syndrome. And, if it’s not really a “syndrome”, it ought to be.

I alluded to this a little bit in yesterday’s post. It was focused completely on finances but, paying yourself first (after tithing, of course) should also be a *thing* when it comes to future goals.

The first thing I do every morning now is write…or at least that’s the goal each day. I don’t always succeed, but I do a lot better with keeping a writing habit in the morning than I do in the evening…especially if I don’t have a thesis holding my backside to the fire.

It was while I was working on that thesis that I started fixating on those missed chances. Why didn’t I do this writing degree thing 30 years ago when I was younger? Why did I allow another’s abuse to broadside me away from my dreams? If I had finished this book a decade or two ago, so many loved ones would still be here to read it. I can only hope they’re smiling down from heaven now, cheering me on. But I wish I could’ve shared it with them while they were here.

Ditto for my homesteading dreams. In this case, and maybe with my writing, too, I keep waiting for the perfect conditions. Or I’ll tell myself all month that with my next paycheck I’ll pick up XYZ for the garden, the kitchen, to streamline some project, etc. And then payday comes and goes and my inner-Martha comes out and my focus turns more to the day-to-day. Nothing wrong with that…except another month comes and goes and I’m no closer to that one little goal I set for myself. Slow and steady wins the race, but I also have to keep moving towards that goal…or it’ll be another dream never realized.

There’s a string of them behind me. I’m sure most people reading this will have them, too.

And, yes, this is where I remind myself of two great ladies I’ve mentioned in the past: “Grandma” Mary Moses, who didn’t sell her first painting until she was 78 years old (and lived to be 102!), and “Grandma” Emma Gatewood, who became the first woman to hike the Appalachian Trail alone at the age of 67 and is the first person to ever hike three times.

I’m not too old. And it’s not too late to have a successful career as a writer. It’s also not too late to develop a thriving homestead.

However, I do have to take those steps. That’s where the paying-myself-first advice comes in. It may only be something small, but at least it’s something. It’s a step in the right direction.

“If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” (Henry David Thoreau)

What dreams are on your heart today? And what steps are you taking to meet them? I’d be delighted if you’d share them in the comments.

May God bless you & keep you!