In the movie The Departed, Frank Costello tells a young Colin Sullivan that, “when you decide to be something, you can be it.” What he means by that is that other people may have ideas about what you should be or what you should do with your life, but you are the one who ultimately makes the decision.
For some of us meandering through our lives today, we feel like it isn’t just that easy. We feel stuck in our same patterns and routines. Are we really stuck, though? Well, think about it like this:
Picture yourself waking up in the morning.
Perhaps you silence the buzzing alarm on your phone; perhaps you wake up without it.
You go to the bathroom, take a shower, scrub your face and brush your teeth. You pick out your clothes (and hope no one will notice that you wore this blue shirt last week). You get going.
If you commute to work, you hit Starbucks to get a turkey-bacon sandwich and iced Americano. You flirt with the barista. You always flirt with the barista because he’s always has this fun vibe.
You arrive at work. Check emails, calendar appointments, and do the thing you’ve been paid to do. You are very busy today. You push buttons. You go to meetings. You check social media when no one’s looking. You deliver projects on time. Most importantly, you do your job.
If you have them, you exchange pleasant words with your co-workers. Maybe you grab lunch with one of them and chat about the big thing that happened on TV last night.
At the end of your day, you travel the same route in your car home. You fix yourself some dinner, scroll through social media and do the dishes. You settle in for some Netflix. Then you get ready for bed and set the alarm for the next day. You think of all the fun things you’ll do when Friday night rolls around and you get to be with your friends.
You drift off into sleep.
This is your life.
Nothing’s terribly wrong with this picture if this is what you want it to be…But is it? You see, we stay mindlessly committed to patterns and routines. Even when they don’t bring us happiness or no longer serve us. We convince ourselves that if we put in all the work now, we will finally be able to live our dreams later in life.
But the truth is, life is happening now. We have no idea how many trips around the sun we will have. Our time here is limited, and we are perishable items. We simply cannot afford to continue to live in potential.
Stop waiting for the perfect time to do what you want to do. In Tim McGraw’s song, Live Like You Were Dying, he tells the story of a man in his forties who discovers that his father is dying from an illness. After dealing with the crisis from the diagnosis, his father decides to start living like he was dying. He starts doing all the things he always wanted to do in his life. He loves deeper and develops more meaningful relationships with his loved ones. He chooses to forgive people he had denied forgiveness to. He tells his son, “Someday I hope you get the chance to live like you were dying”.
We are all dying, and no one will get a reprieve from it. We need to start living like we are dying because we are. Who we are and what we do with our lives is entirely up to us. All we have to do is decide to make our move.
Who do you want to be? What is holding you back from being it? What steps can you take today to get closer to who you want to be?
