BY: ANDREW UYENO
How long has your phone background been a picture of that dream vacation of yours? We all have these aspirations or these goals we want to achieve in our lifetime but we always seem to find a way to put them off. Regret is a terrible thing to carry. It haunts us and won’t go away. I still regret not asking my high school crush to the prom. The sad part is she probably would have said yes.
Our minds will create all sorts of reasons for why it won’t work. Let’s say you have always wanted to travel Europe. For years you tell all your friends about your dream trip. And every time it becomes possible, you keep putting it off by saying things like, “I need to save money,” or “it’s just not the right time,” or “I can’t leave home for that long!” Then five years later, you still haven’t come any closer to crossing that ocean.
Our fears fuel these excuses. As much as we want to break from our comfort zones, we would rather play it safe. I was exactly the same way for the years and years I dreamed of going to LA. I had so many chances to go, but I said, “It’s not the right time” and “I really should save money.” So instead of enjoying the warm weather I stayed in Mississauga looking up pictures of Sunset Blvd. and listening to songs about the women in California. It got so bad that my phone’s lock screen was a picture of LAX. Why want something so much but continuously put it off? For the most part it’s subconscious and we don’t notice that we are doing it.
To do something so spontaneous is scary because of the litany of unknowns. After playing it so safe for years I needed a break from the norm. So when I got the text “hey man do you want to go to LA this weekend?” on a random Sunday I knew what I had to do. I needed to make “someday” today. As my hands were shaking from the nervousness of not knowing what was about to come, I sent “Count me in.” The next day I bought my ticket, packed my bags, scrambled to get my shifts covered at work and got ready for this life-changing trip. There were so many things that would normally hold me back like my fear of aeroplanes or my lack of money. For some reason, this time, I wasn’t going to let any of that stop me.
In life, we won’t be fully sure of some things, but that’s when we just need to take a leap of faith. Like they say, if we never jump, we will never truly learn how to fly. We will never experience the fun of just letting go and won’t experience the true joys of life. Those four days have forever changed my life. For the first time, I saw the Pacific Ocean with my own eyes. I touched palm trees and learned what it truly means to live. Now you don’t have pack everything up and take off to Australia, just stop making excuses for all the things in life that you want to accomplish. It could be as simple as asking out that person you like. If you never go for it, you will never know what could have been. And you will always wonder, what if? Enjoy life. Take a leap and make that “someday” today.
