What impact do you want to make on the world? It was an interesting question that was posed to me that has really got me thinking. If you ask this question to a ten year old, the answer is going to be more heroic than if you were to ask this same question to a thirty-year-old.
Sadly, somewhere between the lines of being a child and being forced into adulthood, we go from looking at life with a “no holds barred” mentality to one that stifles our inner-childhood dreams. Becoming the CEO of a company or the person who finds the cure for cancer succumbs to being a person worried at the dinner table because there is more month left than there is money.
We go from living a potential glorious life ahead of us where we can be anything we want to be, to living a life where we are sick and tired of being sick and tired. If this is you, then now is the time to make the change in your life necessary to be the person you were meant to be.
What’s the difference in your life now compared to when you were a child? Would the younger you be satisfied knowing the life you are living on a daily basis? If not, then why? I hear all kinds of answers as to why people cannot be the person they want to be because of varying reasons, but rest assured these responses are only excuses.
I knew a man growing up who decided he wanted to be a pastor and was going to live his childhood dream of bringing people closer to God. There were many naysayers who thought the man was ludicrous. How could he leave his comfy job to take up his cross and spread the word of Christ? He had put in nearly 20 years working for the local factory and he was nearing retirement age. This career move would be detrimental to his financial stability.
Other people, who had given up on their dreams, were trying to get the man to give up on his. After all, he was 55 years old and wasn’t getting any younger so why would he make the career move? Here’s where I want to challenge your thinking though. The average life expectancy of a person living in the United States is just over 78 years. Now do the math; if the person finally went after their passion at 55 years of age, and lived the average life expectancy, this means that person would spend 23 years living out their passion.
Many people get up day-in and day-out to go to jobs they really don’t like to only come home and complete the rat race they have burrowed themselves into. Does this sound familiar to you? I want you to take out a pen and piece of paper, you can even use the side margin on this article. At the top I want you to write down what impact you want to have on the world.
The answer you write down to this question is what you are passionate about and is what you need to aggressively go after in your lifetime. Below this answer I want you to calculate how many years you have left being able to live out this passion.
If you are someone reading this passage and are above the expected life expectancy, this article is for you too! We never know when our number is going to be called, and we should live each day as if it is our last because it may be. I have continuously heard people talking about living life with no regrets, but the more I think about the impact being made on the world, I have to question how many people are just lying when they say they have no regrets?
The time to start living your life needs to be today. We all have consciously said we would start something tomorrow only to find an obstacle or two get into our way. Before we know it, tomorrow has turned into next week, next week into next month, and next month into, “If I was only younger.”
We get one shot at life and there is only one person standing in the way of our dreams, of our passions. The person standing in the way of your dreams is you. What impact are you going to make on the world?
By: D. A. Slinkard
D.A. Slinkard is the manager of the Athens Staples store
