Stop Wishing Your Life Away

By: D.A. Slinkard
It is hard to believe the end of 2017 is nearing and 2018 is fast approaching. I was recently speaking with my father-in-law, Denny Urhahn, about how quickly life goes by. He made a comment about how oftentimes we wish away our life before it happens, and it all made sense. He pointed out that as kids, we wish we were a teenager, we wish we were sixteen so we could drive around town. Then we wish we were eighteen and considered an adult, then it is twenty-one. Next, is wishing we could retire and then when we reach retirement age, we go back to wishing we were young.

Now, this does not happen to everyone, but I would say this occurs with most people. We always think that life is going to be better when X happens or when I am X years old, I will be able to do this. The truth is we cannot sit around waiting for life to happen to us or for us because life just does not work like that. We lie to ourselves that when we reach a certain age we will start doing the things we know we should be doing, but the truth is we do not have the necessary discipline to do so.

We go about wishing for things to happen in our life. We get so caught-up in our dreams that we fail to realize how to make those dreams turn into realities. I want you to think about any invention that man has ever created, and I want to point out that even it started as a wish. Someone out there wished there was an invention to solve XYZ problem, but instead of just wishing upon it, they actually went out and made it happen.

We have to take advantage of every step of our lives and in doing so, we must stop wishing away our lives. We need to take the time to realize what it is that we want, what steps we need to take to achieve it, give ourselves a time frame for it, and then start taking massive action towards achieving our wish. Doing these steps is how we are going to turn those wishes into realities.

I understand that going from wishing life would happen to making life happen is difficult for many people, but we need to reflect upon how some achieve greater success than others. I do not believe they are luckier than other people and that is why they have success. I have found the harder I work, the luckier I get. It is about hard work. I hear jealous people say another person’s success is because of their last name.

Well, if having the “right’ last name is going to bring you success, then why not head down to the courthouse and legally change yours? Sounds silly to do so, right? Yet we have people make that excuse every day because they do not have that right last name. Probably my favorite excuse for others’ success is because of who they knew. Why is this a problem? How many times do we reach our limits and we need others to help us get better? Parents do this with their kids all of the time, and we need to understand that using our resources to help obtain success is not necessarily a bad thing.

Whatever in life you are wanting to achieve success in comes down to one simple step you must take. It is not about wishing success or hoping success … not at all. The one step we must take is to decide. We must make a conscious effort proclaiming exactly what it is we will do. When we get stuck on our wishes it is because we have not fully committed to our dreams. With anyone that has success in life, you will find a certain level of belief in their own ability. Anyone stuck on the sidelines of their wishes is someone who is not committed 100% to the task at hand.

You must decide you are going to be a success. You must decide you are not willing to accept failure as an option. You must decide you are going to do “Whatever It Takes” (W.I.T.) to obtain success. Most importantly, you must decide you are going to leave the wishing and hoping for those who will not succeed while you do what you must to achieve your success. Go be great!
By: D. A. Slinkard
D.A. Slinkard is the manager of the Athens Staples store