make "one day", today

So I was chatting back and forth with some of my friends on one of my favourite blogs, Men with Pens, and the more I thought about something I said there, the more I thought it should be the cornerstone of what I am doing.

Of how I should live my life.

I have often said things like, “one day, I’ll be a writer”, or “one day, I’ll go to New Zealand”.  Well, I eventually did go to New Zealand, last year.  The picture above is one my wife took of me standing at Mudbrick, a restaurant and vineyard on Waiheke Island near Auckland, New Zealand.

“One day.”  I have used that line many times, as part of a never ending list of excuses for why I am not doing something.  Not why I can’t do something – no, why I *won’t* do something.  I might say, “one day, I’ll do this, but I have four children”.

Yes, I do have four children.  But they do not hold me back.  They inspire me, because when they want to do something, they just try it right away, fall, and get back up again.

Perhaps it may take longer to get things going with a full-time job and a large family, but that is okay.  It is all too easy to give up, unless you see that others who have had wild success did not do it overnight.

I honestly never thought I would get to stand atop that hill, by the vineyard.  But I did it.

Today, I am writing these words on my blog.  I had often said, “one day, I’ll have a blog”.  I have one, today, and I am on my way – I am a writer, and I will succeed.  I am writing two books as we speak.

I am personally inspired to write by two successful authors – John Grisham, who took three years of his spare time to write “A Time to Kill” – and J.K. Rowling, who took about five years to write “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone”, on a manual typewriter no less!

Both authors had their manuscripts initially rejected.  Both persevered, and became wildly successful.  They turned “one day” into today.

And I am inspired by all of you, who take the time to come here and read my words.

It is possible to find the time.  We are all given the same amount of time, it is what we make of it that counts.  In “The Assault on Reason”, Al Gore claims that the average American watches 4 hours 35 minutes of television every day.

I do not watch television much, but I spend a lot of time reading other people’s work on the web.  Much of it inspires me, but inspiration without action…

Now, if I took Harry’s 10 minute approach to any particular task, and turned it into 1 or 2 hours a day, imagine where I would end up.

I would turn “one day” into today.

And that is what I am doing, right now, today.  It works.  Thank you for the inspiration, my friends.

Take 10 minutes.  Write down whatever it is that you want to do “one day”.

Start doing it today.