I have been traveling abroad over the last few weeks and am now spending a few days in Athens, Greece in a little apartment with a beautiful garden terrace, billowing, soft, white curtains and great WIFI. Life is good.

This post from 2011 popped-up this morning, and it reminded me how dramatically my life changed when I began truly living it!

I had recently read Mary Anne Radmacher’s inspirational little book “Life Begins When You Do” when I wrote this post. For those of you who are letting life pass you by, please don’t! I began living mine more fully about 20 years ago, and almost every single day life continues to surprise and delight me.  

Mary Anne Radmacher’s words . . .

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 now! Check my Resource section and posts to get started. 

You can do it!

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