If Not Now, When??

I think I've mentioned this before but about 7 months before I turned 40 I started to panic. I continued to panic right through my 40th birthday and clear into my 41st year. It wasn't so much that I felt physically old, just that I had regrets. A list of things that I would never do. I didn't even know what I wanted to be when I grew up and here I was, well into middle age. On the downhill side of life. The cup was half empty. I'm not exactly sure when it happened but at some point it dawned on me that there just might be things I could do that were never on the original list. Things that I hadn't thought of! Mentally I made a whole new list. The list has grown to include horses and 4-wheelers. Maybe even a 10K. I might even know what I want to be when I grow up. If nothing else, I'm learning to take care of myself and I think that's made all the difference. I've come to an understanding with the person I'll be when I'm 70 that I won't have regrets and I will do my best to take care of my 42 year-old self so that my 70 year-old self won't have to be confined by a useless, run-down mind and body. God willing.

All that to say we had a very interesting event last week that brought all of this back to the surface for me.

It was a corporate dinner party with a motivational speaker who spent close to 20 years of his life in and out of prison. He's been out for about 13 years and leads a very productive life because one day he asked himself the question, "If not now, when?"

Although this simple, yet profound, thought never crossed my mind, I think I'm beginning to understand the idea behind it.

A couple of days after the event I found this quote in a magazine:

"A person is not old until regrets take the place of dreams."

Obviously I'm not getting any younger but I'd like to think that I'm closer to the beginning than the end. . .