Stop waiting on the perfect moment to start your journey. Begin today. Photo via Creative Commons.
By Chanda Temple
Note: I attended Oprah Winfrey’s Life You Want Weekend Tour earlier this fall. I’m blogging every day this week about main messages from the event. Today is Day 6.
Pastor Rob Bell doesn’t wait for the perfect moment or a big holiday to dine on the china at his home. He and his family use it every day.
Why? Because they have today, he said.
The practice, which Bell shared during Oprah Winfrey’s Life You Want Tour this fall, got me to thinking: How many of us wait for the perfect moment to do something but that perfect moment never comes and all we do is end up waiting?
Pastor Rob Bell
Photo by Sonya Boatwright
One person who didn’t wait on a perfect moment was Sandy Lee of LaGrange, Ga.
When she turned 46 in June 2014, she bought herself a Harley-Davidson motorcycle.
An aunt and two friends tried to discourage her from riding it, expressing safety concerns. But Lee didn’t listen. The bike was a done deal and she was going to ride it. She’d even signed up for riding lessons.
A few weeks after buying the bike, Lee’s aunt died. Later her two friends died. They all died of cancer.
What Lee learned from that experience is to not put off anything. (She shared part of her story on stage with Winfrey during the weekend tour in Atlanta. I later interviewed her about it.)
“I can’t let anybody else’s fears consume my life,’’ Lee told me. “Find happiness. Live for yourself.’’
Oprah Winfrey talks to Sandy Lee during the first of Winfrey’s LIfe You Want Weekend tours. This was in Atlanta.
Photo by Sonya Boatwright
If you are in a holding pattern and not sure how to break free of the waiting, let what I learned from “Eat Pray Love” author Elizabeth Gilbert, also a tour presenter, snap you out of it: Consider yourself on a journey, a hero’s journey. But that journey can’t begin until you decide to begin it. Start today.
Chanda Temple worked as a reporter for 20 years before becoming a public relations professional. She blogs about being better in business and more at http://www.chandatemplewrites.com. Follow her on Twitter at @chandatemple.