Regret is a terrible thing.
I don’t have many. But one stands out.
The trip of a lifetime.
With my dad.
He’d invited me to climb to Everest Base Camp with him. The two of us had learned to climb together. He was running a continuing medical education program for fellow physicians. He knew I loved the mountains; and that I had an interest in high-altitude medicine.
Three weeks with my dad. In the Himalayas.
I said no.
You see, I was busy.
Three weeks seemed like a very long time.
I had a job. Responsibilities.
Important things to do.
There’d be another opportunity.
There wasn’t.
Years later, the National Park Service extended an invitation to me to be on its high-altitude medical team. A rare and prestigious invitation to be with some of the luminaries in the mountaineering world.
Three weeks. In the Alaska Range.
An extraordinary opportunity.
I said no.
You see, I was busy.
Three weeks seemed like a very long time.
I had a job. Responsibilities.
Important things to do.
There’d be another opportunity.
There wasn’t.
I’m just back from the Himalayas.
A climb to Everest Base Camp.
With my amazing climbing partner, my awesome life partner, my beautiful wife, Ann.
It was extraordinary.
Perhaps the most extraordinary, life-changing experience of my life.
But.
I had such resistance to going.
Because, you see, I’m busy.
I have important work to do.
And three weeks is such a long time.
Except that it’s not.
Think about the last three weeks of your life.
They’re like a flash of lightning in the night sky.
Gone.
Vanished in the rearview mirror.
And the stories you tell about your self-importance. About your responsibilities. About the things you’ll miss out on if you actually do that thing that calls you.
They’re just stories.
And, most of them untrue.
If the last two years have taught you anything it should be this:
Life is fragile. Unpredictable. Fleeting.
It changes in an instant. In an ordinary instant. And that opportunity, that experience, that trip of a lifetime?
It may well be gone. Forever.
My tears flowed on many days as I walked among the towering Himalayas. I felt my dad. He was there with me. Walking beside me in that place he so treasured. I loved that he was with me. And I would have given anything in those moments to have said ‘yes’ to that invitation of his so many years ago.
Your life is a series of moments. These moments. Not future moments. Not “I’ll get to it when” moments.
Only these precious, present moments.
And in these moments, there is a call within you. To fulfill those deepest longings of your heart.
Listen to them.
Answer the call.
Not someday.
But now.
Because dreams deferred are dreams denied.
And regret is a terrible thing.
I’m a dream catcher. If there’s a dream that you’re longing to make real, I can help you. Email me: [email protected]