Dreams Become Procrastination
Fancy machines beeped, whirred, and stuttered their life-preserving messages back and forth. This one keeps the heart going, but not too fast. That one over there keeps the oxygen flowing, but not too fast. Shriveled hands flutter quietly and float upward like butterflies to brush away a rogue fly from the paper cup on the food tray next to the bed. The shriveled man adjusts his shriveled body to get a better angle for his view out the single window in his tiny room. Staring out into the sunlight, a smile tugs at the corners of his mouth…
It feels like he’s lived with the world on a string, but it didn’t start that way. As a youngster, he was more focused on the easy route, the fun, and the games he could play. No focus or dedication was worth his time or effort. He was too busy doing his own thing...But as he got older, everything started to click for him. He made plans, big plans. REALLY big plans and he wrote them down in order to begin crafting his new reality. First, to forsake the follies and lack of discipline that defined his younger years. It was easy enough to do. By focusing on what he wanted to accomplish in 5 or 10 years, he was able to crystallize the ideas that he wanted to see come to pass. From there, he was able to reverse engineer what success should look like. Break that dream down into more manageable chunks...So, that’s the goal in ten years, what’s five look like? What goals must be hit in two years...or one? Got it! Now, what do you have to have done in six months? Three months? This month? From there, it’s easy to get really granular and know EXACTLY what to do today. This approach was invaluable and helped him craft a list of the steps, both big and small, to create the blueprint he needed to follow. It was his handcrafted recipe for the “the hustle...the grind” that would get him where he wanted to go.
He became a fountain of knowledge...reading so many leadership books, taking incredibly deep dives into the world of personal development and mastery through courses, seminars, and videos. He fully immersed himself in the ocean of information that’s freely available to all of us and unlocked the powerful steps that his role models took in order to accomplish their world-changing feats of industry and creativity. Living a life of incredible accomplishment lost its mystery and became a feasible reality. He learned the steps, the actions to take, the habits to install, and how to realize his deepest desires for true greatness. Over the course of his years, he refined that understanding and planned for success at every level...from the proverbial bird’s eye view to the smallest detail.
He didn’t just stop with his career though. He used the tools and knowledge to craft systems, protocols, and habits to change the world for the better. Everything was captured diligently in his daily journaling...He recorded the type of person he wanted to become, wealthy, philanthropic, impactful, adventurous, fun to be around, encouraging to others, humble, and generous. Around his lists of traits to work on, he doodled the greatest, most inspirational quotes he could find with a maniacal intensity. Each one seemed to impact him more than the last, and they all inspired him to spend more time researching, planning, and preparing himself for the greatness and impact he would achieve.
On other pages, he listed the adventures he would go on, and oh what a list that was! Hiking through Malaysia, scuba diving in Sydney, kite surfing in Mauritius, kayaking in Colorado, exploring the ruins of Petra, and camping in the Grand Canyon comprised just a few of the incredible trips in the works. Daily adventures listed, weekend getaways planned, AirBnB locations for remote work, and digital nomadism adorned still other pages.
He even took the time to list out the traits he wanted in his spouse...after all, living such an adventurous lifestyle required a special person to share it with...and eventually special children that he could raise to carry on his legacy when he finally decided to retire from the empires he was building. These journals were exquisite things of beauty. From their scribbles to the hand-lettered quotes, organized lists, rough sketches, and photos of far-off places artfully collected and glued in their appropriate spot. They were a work of art themselves…
As the little old man lovingly flipped through them and shuffled them around on the bedsheet that was stretched tightly over shriveled legs to form a makeshift desk, his smile grew. Softly caressing, page after page, he breathed deeply and sighed at the rough, somehow imperfect, perfection of a life well planned. With the precision of their creator, he browsed from dream to dream, sun-kissed beach photo to the pressed flower from that mountainside near Golden that he ordered online because he was never able to make it himself. As he gently outlined the shape of the flower with a feeble finger, tension suddenly stopped the tracing short. His breath caught in his chest for a moment and when it resumed, it came in short, rattling gasps as he frantically shuffled through the stack of journals and ripped free one toward the bottom of the pile.
This one was more worn than the rest. Its leather dark, scarred, and full of character. It was obviously one of his first and had seen countless hours in the man’s hands capturing his hopes, dreams, and plans. Normally, he’d take a moment to welcome this particular journal into his day...running his hands over the scars, remembering his favorite coffee shop, chuckling about the coffee-stained pages, and reminiscing about the various seasons of life the journal brought him through. This time though, he didn’t. He frantically began flipping through the pages, fanning them like a speed reader as his gaze screamed across his scribbled writing, until finally he stopped, eyes wide. Instantly, tears brimmed over his eyelids and dropped to pages he had opened before him. They were oddly free of scribbles, quotes, doodles, and drawings...They simply had one short phrase written toward the top left of the page...a thought, a lightbulb, but one long abandoned, forgotten in the pursuit of the adrenaline rush that comes from dreaming...The simple phrase said,
“There reaches a point where plans and dreams become procrastination. Don’t let it happen to you.”
He sat back heavily against the stack of pillows behind his back and took a long, creaky breath. His eyes darted from the window to the empty room, empty chairs, and table, and finally rested on the tray next to his bed. All that was there was his paper water cup with a fly now happily enjoying the perch...He leaned his head back, closing his eyes against the emptiness, ignoring the tears as they streamed down his face to his neck before finally nestling into the collar of his complimentary robe. He blew out his breath slowly…
The machines stopped...one beeped an unbroken alarm...