This One Question Will Completely Change Your Perspective on Life
I don’t know about you but it seems like the older I get, the faster time goes. Every birthday I am shocked at how quickly the previous year has gone by. While I am grateful for each day I get to experience life, I sometimes wish there was a pause button.
I think it hits me, even more, when I think of a random memory or trip I had taken years before and realized there is already so much of my life I have forgotten. Those tiny details that happened in my life feel so real at the moment. To think that so many tiny moments have passed that my brain can no longer recall is bittersweet.
Since I am a highly sensitive person, nostalgia seems to hit me harder than most people. I get pangs of sadness when I think back to my younger years and all the good things that happened. I feel a weird hollowness when I realize that I will never get to relive some seasons of my life.
It’s not all sad though, I also get very excited about the future. I remind myself that since I have experienced so many good things in my life prior, it means that there’s still so much to see and do. And don’t get me wrong, at 33 years old I know that I have a full life ahead of me.
Since I have such a reminiscent nature, it also means I am hyper-aware of the present moment and not wanting to waste any time. With the years passing by so quickly, I want to feel like I have lived each moment to the best I can.
This mindset really hit me hard during the COVID pandemic. Life changed so quickly overnight and some things we will never go back to. This got me thinking a lot about my own life and what I wanted to accomplish here on Earth knowing that it could change in an instant.
During COVID we watched entire industries disappear or completely change. We witnessed people start new careers or move to a new state to start over. While of course, these things happen in normal times, I think everyone felt that push to live life now. I know I certainly did.
This especially was true for me and my dream of being a writer. See for so many years I had this dream of writing and coaching other people but I was terrified to put myself out there. I didn’t want friends or coworkers to think I was weird so I just continued to hide.
Right when I would get a feeling of confidence or hit of inspiration to go for it, that familiar fear voice would step in and put an end to everything. I suffered from a bad case of imposter syndrome and I was letting my fear and anxiety win.
I continued to hide and squash my dreams for all of 2020. I would publish an article or share content and then go back to hiding. I was dipping my toe in the water but still hesitant to fully put myself out there, I mean who was I to try?
It was during the winter of 2020 that I was feeling depressed. The world was still uncertain and I was not leaving the house. I was way too in my comfort zone, mentally and physically that I couldn’t handle the thought of leaving it.
The fight between the fear of putting myself out there and my dream of being a writer was exhausting. It was a constant battle in my head that was taking up all of my brain space. But like always, my anxiety won and I scraped all my dreams and went back to watching Netflix.
But during that winter the nostalgia was hitting me hard. I think it was because life changed so drastically and made me really assess where I was at that moment. While I was (and still am) happily married, there was still that hole I was feeling from denying myself the life I truly wanted.
That’s when this thought hit me that completely changed everything. It was a question that stopped me in my tracks and gave me a massive wake-up call. I now know that it was a thought delivered to me from the Universe to finally go after my dream.
The question was: “When I am 80 years old and looking back on my life, what do I want to remember?” And then another question followed that further drove the point home, it was “Do I want to remember that I followed the masses or I followed my heart?”
It hit me like a pile of bricks but I knew what I had to do. I had to go after my dream regardless if I still felt afraid. I had to not care what people think of me because everyone is too concerned with themselves anyway. I had to accept that it may not work out but the journey will change my life.
This question forced me out of my comfort zone because of course I didn’t want to just follow the masses. I had to take action toward the life I wanted because it wouldn’t just happen with me sitting on the couch. I had to also realize that no one was else going to make my dreams a reality, only I could do that.
And that’s exactly what I did since that question came to me. I committed to writing consistently and building my audience. I committed to believing in my dream and knowing that the Universe will work with me to make it happen. I had no idea where my writing would go but within the first 6 months, my articles had received over 40,000 readers to my pleasant surprise.
The biggest lesson I have learned since then is to just take the action instead of overthinking. I find that time and time again, the action is way less scary than your mind makes it up to be. My confidence grows every time I hit publish and know that it will reach the right people.
So now I turn the question onto, what do you most want to remember when you are 80 years old and looking back? What can your current self do today that your future self will thank you for? What are the foundations you want to start building?
The answer may just be the hit of inspiration you need.
