What will you lose if you start today? Nothing.
What will you lose if you don’t start today? Time.
No matter what you decide, whether you move forward or stand still, time will not wait for you. Life keeps going. It has no respect for your mood. No pause button for your fears.
Just as someone dies today, someone is born today. As you go through the motions, so does nature. It moves on a schedule none of us control. Seasons will change. Days will pass. You could contemplate forever. But even forever must come to an end.
I recently watched a video about a woman who whened her life away. At every turning point, she postponed her dreams, plans, and ideas constantly moving the goal post:
When she turned 35.
When she saved a little more.
When her kids were older. When she found someone to accompany her.
When she retired.
When life “made sense.” When she lost this or gained that.
And somewhere in her 60s, she looked back — not at a life full of risks taken, dreams chased, and stories lived — but at a ‘when’ goal post that came and went while the list of things she never did grew.
Because time doesn’t wait.
Life doesn’t deliver on convenience.
It delivers to those willing to start—even when it feels messy or incomplete.
The audacious are rewarded in life.
Not because they are smarter, more talented, or more deserving than you.
They are rewarded because they dare to show up.
I am someone who hasn’t always shown up. Many ideas have lived vibrant existences in the crevices of my mind for years. Some made it onto the pages of incomplete notebooks.
Others scattered across digital folders—drafts, mood boards, half-finished business plans.
Some even made it onto platforms created but never shared with the world. And too many never had the chance to live at all.
I am always haunted by a talk I heard Les Brown give about the graveyard being the wealthiest place on earth. I preach it every chance I get. The thought of the graveyard being home to songs never sang, inventions never created, solutions that never made a difference, talent no one got to experience, brilliance no one got to bask in because life came to a close with so much unreleased is both terrifying and heartbreaking.
I am inspired to want to leave this world empty. To give everything I have and was meant to deliver before going to meet my Father. That calling is not self centered. As Matthew 5:15-16 says, ‘No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.’
There is a Yoruba proverb that says, “Don’t let what you will eat distract you from what you are created to do.” I carry that close to my chest because it speaks to one of the core centers of many of our fears: survival. Making ends meet. Having enough money. Staying afloat.
But, I once heard a preacher challenge that fear, insisting that if we succeed at everything we do here on earth, except the very thing we were created for: we have still failed.
Calling is rarely convenient. Purpose is often waiting on the other side of fear.
Today, I want you to just do it.
Give us what you have.
Start so that you can grow.
Dare to leave this world empty, by showing up however you can, consistently.
There is no perfect time to do a good thing.
The time is, and will always be, now.
