Living with Urgency: Why “Someday” Isn’t Good Enough

My two monitors in my office each have a specific background. 

One has a picture of the mountains from a cabin in Black Mountain, the other with an overhead view of Iguazu Falls in South America.

These two images represent a small yet important piece of my vision.

I want my family to have incredible experiences in incredible places around the world (plus a beautiful mountain home)

So I have a sense of urgency.

It came at a price

Both of my parents died when I was too young. My mom the summer before my senior year of college, and my dad a few months after my 30th birthday.

While their deaths certainly provided plenty of other important lessons (and problems) for me to unpack, it also blessed me with this sense of urgency.

Life is precious, and tomorrow isn’t guaranteed.

So why not live it to the fullest?

Life happens fast

Jami and I have a bucket list. We both love to travel, and we both want to see the incredible places that this world has to offer

We have dozens of places we want to go, and not all of it is cheap.

We also want to fly there comfortably. A few years ago on a trip to Europe we cashed in every American Airlines point we to get first class seats in one of the lay down pods. 

It was an INCREDIBLE experience that raised the bar for international travel.

So if we truly want to hit all of those places on our list, we need to have a sense of urgency.

To put it into perspective…hitting just one bucket list trip per year means it will take us decades to get there, and that’s assuming that we never get to enjoy a single place more than once. 

That’s not good enough for us.

Too much talk

Most of us know plenty of people who claim to want big lives. They dream of the mountain house, the beach house, and the travel, but they never do anything to make it happen.

If you’ve ever read The Alchemist, most people live like the crystal merchant.

They hold onto their dreams as meaningful and sacred, preferring the excitement of anticipation than actually making it happen.

(And if you’ve never read The Alchemist, do yourself a favor and read it ASAP. Here’s the link) 

I’m not here to live a life of talk and mediocrity. And I hope you aren’t either.

That’s why the conventional logic and conventional rules simply don’t work.

I’m not willing to subscribe to the concept of a life that starts at 65.

Nor am I willing to have my future fully dependent on the performance of a volatile stock market.

I have a sense of urgency

And that means I need more control over my decisions, my money, and my future.

It means I need a willingness to take risk, and an eye for asymmetric opportunities.

It means I need to be willing to go left when everybody goes right, to say no when everybody says yes, and to say yes, when everybody says no

It means I need to live with intention. Not following the script of society, norms, or other expectations, but doing what is best and right for me, my family, and our future

I have a sense of urgency.

And I hope you do too.