Last night I spent a wonderful evening doing some Wishful Thinking with an interesting group of women, who are exploring their hopes and dreams, and are living their lives as Mary Anne Radmacher invites us to in her inspirational little book Life Begins When You Do: 

Nearly everyone postpones one grand thing or a collection of mighty hopes and dreams.

Between the quote marks of our lives are phrases like these: “When things slow down…when I finish my degree…when I get certified…as I acquire a deeper knowledge base…when I have kids…when the kids are grown…when I get well…when I marry…when I divorce…when I retire…when I get that promotion, that raise, that job, that house, that whatever the fill-in-the blank is for your specific postponing of life…”

Your Life Begins When You Do.

You may think you are postponing the longing of your soul until life aligns itself with your vision, until elements conspire to be more favorable…but as it happens, life just lolls along at the same remarkable consistent and disinterested cadence. Life is impartial. YOUR personal, subjective life (dreams, satisfactions, contentment, achievements, vision, fullness, passion, aspirations) begins when you begin.

From my teens into adulthood, I said, “I want to be an artist.” One day I changed the sentence to, “I am an artist.” My view changed. Life began. I looked behind me and saw that I had been accidentally living as an artist. I had been laying down a path that was only now visible to eyes that had begun to see. Beginning my life as an artist made my heart’s longing and the small, tentative labors of my hands – visible and tangible. I began by opening the door and simply believing that I could live my dream. I began living that dream by seeing that I could.

Your purpose, that thing that among the many to-dos of your days, is what you must do. Embrace the truth of your purpose each minute of your precious life…for how very true it is that life begins when you do.

If you would dream it . . . BEGIN it.

If you have an idea . . . OPEN it.

If there is longing . . . ACKNOWLEDGE it.

If there is mission . . . COMMIT it.

If there is daring . . . DO it.

If there is love  . . . SPEAK it.

If there is resource  . . . USE it.

Don’t delay living the life of your dreams. You can begin this weekend. Check my Resource section, this post and Mary Anne’s book to get started. 

A long and heartfelt PS: I would like to give a special shout-out to Fran, Jan, Joan, Linda, Nellie, Pam, and Sheryl who were great and more than willing to have some fun last night, I like that! Thank you for being there guys, you inspire me!  

And, I’m still smiling about my warm and generous piece of feta cheese covered in thinly sliced tomatoes, onions, with a bit of black olive pesto, tiny tangy yellow peppers and olive oil that our great hostess and host Anita and Denis made for us. They opened their wonderful Coffee Haus after hours for us and made us feel warm and, oh so welcome. Thank you!