If not now, then when?

It’s been a while since I’ve stared a blank page.

I both love and dread the feeling of a blank page for the emptiness of it stares at me like a mirror, waiting for me to drip the blood that is my emotions, my thoughts and my energy, so that it might reflect how I feel deep in my heart of hearts.

It’s intimidating, not for how you may read it, but for how it might reflect the thoughts that float through my mind at that moment in time. It’s terrifying to look at an empty page, but it’s also exciting for I imagine it must be akin to what a musician might see when they see an empty music sheet. When I see a blank page, I see words, like music notes, dancing between the edges of the screen’s frame that is my canvas.

I often don’t know where a story ends when I start writing it (like today), but I know that it always start with an idea. Slowly, that page fills with the ideas that plague my mind, crying to be borne onto a medium and today’s thought is this:

If not now, then when?

Thus far, the story of my life in 2022 is one of one change, of confusion, of tremendous pain, but also of growth, of opportunity, of realization, of joy, of reconnection (with myself).

It’s been seven years since the words that have swirled around deep in my mind and my heart have come together as one to form new ideas and explore the corners of my mind that have dimmed over time. Seven years.

Seven years, since I’ve allowed my mind to run free with possibility.

Seven years since I’ve unleashed the thoughts and ideas that I’ve known always existed in a part of myself that was buried deep within the premises of shoulds and should nots.

Seven years that I’d forgotten about the ideas I’d developed through uncountable trials, tribulations, conversations, relationships and moments on the road that you might never believe really happened.

Seven years since I’d replaced these thoughts and ways of life I’d developed with the expectations not held by my own mind, but by those around me.

And though it almost seems like a lifetime ago, those same words I once thought, once wrote, once lived, dance across my mind and my heart, almost as though I was picking up an old book, continuing to sing a song that I’d never quite finished.

And indeed, this is a long book that still has yet to see its conclusion.

After such a long time, I would have thought that maybe I’d be a different person, and in a lot of ways I am, but funnily enough, I’d almost argue that the person I was seven years ago was wiser than who I am today. Now that’s not to say I’ve regressed in my life, not at all. In fact, I’ve become the person I always thought I could and would become, but… something is different. It’s like something was lost in the pursuit of what I thought would be the ideal me.

In the pursuit of all those glitters, in the pursuit of all those ideals, I’d forgotten something important. Maybe in pursuing who I thought I should become, I’d forgotten what made me pursue that in the first place. Maybe in that pursuit, I’d lost the spark that got me where I was. Maybe I thought that person couldn’t co-exist with the person I needed to become to make those dreams a reality—and what a fallacy it is to think that, but don’t get me started on that today!

The beauty in finding my way to this blank page once more is that the man who once wrote those whimsical words that still resonate with so many of you today is still there. He has (many) more scars, it’s true, but that was more than a result of just life being “life”, it came from forgetting the truths and values that my heart had learned a lifetime ago, when I was younger and indeed, wiser man.

Now if you’re still reading, you might be looking for a lesson in all of this, or perhaps some advice. I’d ask you if, after all this, you think I’m really the one to give it to you?

At the end of the day, I’m just a man slightly cracked (but not broken) by the weight of his own tribulations; one that is slowly building himself back up one lesson at a time through the stories he’s created with people he’s met and learned from along the way.

That said, if I may, I can offer you perhaps some wisdom that I’ve come to learn after the first three chapters of my life (or 30 years of mistakes, if you will).

Life is too short to live by anyone’s will but your own.

You’ve likely seen 100 books, articles, reels, or whatever, that preach the same thing and am I saying anything different? No, likely not.

In fact, if you’re anything like me, you’re probably waiting for that “perfect moment” to live that “perfect and authentic self” that you know yourself to be, no?

Maybe you’re like me, waiting for the day you can FIRE so you can truly live freely and authentically.

Maybe you’re waiting for your soulmate to come into your life so that you can finally unleash that inner child that you’ve suppressed, waiting to feel secure enough to not be rejected.

Maybe you’re a parent, waiting until your own children are grown so that you can return to the person or wide-eyed child that you were before you had them.

And so I offer you this second piece of wisdom:

If not now, then when?

Your time is limited in this world. It just is.

Accept that. Say it out loud. Say it out loud a second time.

Let it dawn on you like the realization that today might truly be your last day on this planet we call home.

If not now, then when?

Tell yourself that every day, like a Mantra you whisper in your mind whenever you ask yourself if you should suppress the superhero you see and know yourself to be in your mind. And make no mistake you are one.

It’s all the small actions you take every day to lift yourself out of your hardships, to breathe life into the reality you’ve created for yourself, to bring moments of joy to the people who cross your path. To create, to make, to live, to exude greatness in all moments of your life, both big and small. And in case you’ve forgotten that lately just ask yourself…

If not now, then when?

Life is not an easy place to navigate. We all carry our hurt with us, afraid to experience more of it, to carry more of that pain with us, to burden others with it. Afraid that in being authentic with our pain we may lose those who are closest to us.

Keep in mind, we all interact with people every day who carry an equal amount of hurt and who feel exactly the same way.

So, my learning is this. Do not shy away. Do not hide.

Carry it proudly. Like a badge of honour.

Your hurt does not define you and, in fact, it releases you.

Remember that your hiding away, your playing small, it does not serve the world and it certainly does not serve you.

The more you hide away in your insecurities and suppress the voice in your mind, the more you will hurt the people who care for you—intentionally or not. The people who really matter will love you all the same, but it is in hiding away from who we truly are and what ails us that causes the most pain for those who wish only to be there for us when we need it most.

It is our conditioned mass inauthenticity and apathy that is the plague of today’s world and the riposte to this is shining with all our might, for better or worse.

We cannot and should not hide who we really are out of fear of being hurt again.

In some ways, it’s like that blank page that always scares me, but also excites me.

The words in my mind and my heart have always been there, waiting for me to draw them back out, but it’s only now that I can string together these sentences that I can see myself in the mirror of my own words.

Those words show me one thing, that the fear, the hurt, the pain… they are the gateway to the light, to the Shine, to the Truth.

And if you had any doubt, just remember to ask yourself:

If not now, then when?

Previous
Previous

What is FIRE?

Next
Next

Why Attraction is Choice