Ilsa: ‘When I said I would never leave you.
Rick: And you never will. But I’ve got a job to do, too. Where I’m going, you can’t follow. What I’ve got to do, you can’t be any part of. Ilsa, I’m no good at being noble, but it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday you’ll understand that.” Casablanca
If Casablanca doesn’t break your heart and or move you in some way I question your humanity. Perhaps that sounds unfair and or unreasonable but that is just how that movie affects me. Rick’s journey is one that I relate to and hope to emulate in some ways and at the same time I never want to follow it.
I keep thinking about these moments in time that we live through. I keep looking back, looking to the side and looking forwards. I look at a post I wrote last August and wonder if I didn’t fall down the rabbit hole.
I am a collector of moments in time. I try to be present in all that I do so that when something special happens I can capture it and lock it away inside that place where the most important things of my life are filed. Â By the time August is finished I will have buried my grandfather, watched my sister get married and moved out of the first house I owned. And I will have done it all in less than 30 days.
So much has happened since that moment when I walked out of the house and stepped into the unknown. I am happy. I am angry. I am sad and I am bitter. I am optimistic. There are opportunities that have come because of this. There are choices that I wouldn’t have made because of this and choices that I had to make because of this.
When I sold the house I knew that nothing would be the same and for the most part I was ok with it. Ok because a long time ago I accepted that the only way to really enjoy life is to live it. It is part of why I love this video.
Lori asks people to tell her how we let go and I say that I am not good at it. I carry some things with me. I don’t forget. I remember. Sometimes I am very good about just shrugging my shoulders and sometimes…not so much.
There are lessons I have learned the hard way. I have made mistakes and buried friends. I know what it means to lose loved ones to terminal illness. I have helped lower their coffins into the ground and then made sure that they were buried because I didn’t stop swinging the shovel. It was the final thank you and my silent way of saying goodbye.
And because I have done these things and experienced life I know that I don’t want to wake up and regret not having lived my life. The difference between thought, action and execution is substantial.
Every day that goes by in which I don’t take a step towards trying to live my dreams is a waste of time and that is the one thing I don’t have enough of. When people ask me why I sometimes get so frustrated with certain things it is because I want to live those dreams yesterday. I don’t want to wait to be happier and more fulfilled. I want it now and I will make it happen because that is how it has to go.
Action is required.
When I say that I want to write ebooks I want to kick it up a notch. Here is my plan. I am going to take a number of my posts and use them to build an ebook. You might wonder why I would do it that way and not write something “fresh.”
The answer is simple. The first book is a learning experience. I don’t know as much as I would like about what tools/resources I should use to create the book. I haven’t decided if I will make this free or sell it for a buck.
The way to learn is to make it happen. Too many people suffer from paralysis of analysis. That isn’t going to be me. The major regrets in my life were caused by that and I have no wish to repeat my mistakes.
It is time to fly. It is time to live. Come fly with me.