One Day

One day

I, like many others, have made those “One day” promises to myself.  If you don’t use that term you might have caught yourself saying “If only” at some point in time. If you take a moment you can probably think of a few things you would like to do one day. If I’m honest I sometimes use that phrase to free me from having to plan toward the thing that I want, but at the same time not feel like it won’t happen even though I’m doing nothing to make it happen. 

I mean, as long as it’s stored there in “One day” then I can go about my business today and feel unburdened right? A few months ago an article caught my eye. It was about someone who had dreamed about working at Disney and now had begun working there. The statement said “When one day becomes day one” I couldn’t stop thinking about it. But not in a good way. It started to bother me and I started to question how often I say “One day, I’d like to do such and such… or if only…” It wasn’t just me I realized so many of us do this. 

How can we go from saying things like “One day I’ll do this or that” to becoming more solution focused?  I don’t want to put off things that I really want in life. Instead I want to learn how to make gradual steps in that direction.

What are some ways we can put healthy pressure on ourselves to set goals and make steps to get to the things we want?  Even when there’s no guarantee that it will happen we can still do our part to move toward “One day” knowing that our special day won’t come If we don’t utilize “today” for that dream.

 When we leave all our thoughts and plans to the future it reduces fear in us because there is no ownership and responsibility for the things we need to do in this moment. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes there is a time to do specific things and some things will realistically be for the future but we have to be honest with ourselves too. If we are making no moves or preparation toward those things now and we have no plan, then most likely it will not happen. 

In our haste to push things into the future we can sometimes assume that some things are unattainable even without looking into them. For example, I had always said that one day I wanted to learn how to drive a manual car. It was at the back of my mind for at least 20 years. I saw the value and It seemed like a good practical skill. Since it had taken me a few tries and a lot of hardships to get my regular drivers license, while not owning a car, once I finally started driving the desire took a back seat in the peripheral of my mind. After my divorce I decided I needed a car and so my friend Samuel and I set about finding the right one to buy. I found a used car in my budget that was actually a great deal. It had everything I wanted and felt like new. It seemed too good to be true. How had the car not been taken already? I wondered. I didn’t have to wonder long. It was manual car, the owner informed us. Samuel and I both sighed in disappointment thinking… “Well I guess that’s a wrap” Then suddenly I had an idea. I would learn how to drive standard(manual) and have this car! And so I bought it. 

Next week I’ll tell you what happened and the lesson I learned about saying “One day”