I'm 66 and here's the one thing I'd tell my 30-year-old self - the life you keep postponing until you've earned it, finished it, or figured it out is not waiting for you at the end of the list, it is the list, and every item you check off before you let yourself begin is another year of your actual life spent preparing to live a different one - Silicon Canals

"I spent forty years telling myself I'd start living once I had enough money saved. Now I'm 66, and I finally get it. All those years I spent waiting to be ready? That was my life. The actual one. The only one I was ever going to get."

"I kept a mental list of all the things I'd do when I 'made it.' Learn to play guitar. Take Donna to Italy. Teach my boys how to rebuild an engine. That list got longer every year. And every year, I pushed it further into the future."

"But life doesn't work that way. It's not a bank account where you make deposits of sacrifice and withdraw happiness later. It's happening right now, whether you realize it or not."

Years were spent waiting for the right conditions to start living fully. At 66, the realization dawned that life was being lived in those waiting moments. Work consumed time, with constant postponements of vacations and family activities. A mental list of future activities grew longer, but the belief that preparation would lead to enjoyment proved false. Life is not a series of deposits for future happiness; it is happening in the present moment, regardless of circumstances.

Read at Silicon Canals