Someday Never Comes

People generally have two frameworks of thought

One is what their ideal life should look like. This generally involves some variance of lots of travel, happy family, job that doesn’t feel like a job, living in a vibrant city etc etc etc. Then there’s the flip side. What people are actually doing. This framework tells them to do the opposite. Just follow the script. Get an undergraduate degree, take the job, play it safe.

And when asked when they will go pursue their ideal life, their response is - “I will someday”, or “later”. And reality is that someday never comes. They just keep doing what they were doing and the goal post keeps getting pushed back. In their 20s, the ideal will arrive in the 30s. In their 30s, that goal post is now the 40s, and so on.

Why do we do this? As Morgan Housel writes in ‘Psychology of Money’:

“There are two ways to use money. One is as a tool to live a better life. The other is as a yardstick of status to measure yourself against others.”

And generally, following the script is a result of playing the yardstick game. Measuring progress not by happiness or freedom, but by how your life looks relative to others 

There’s a saying in Hindi, “Duniya ka Sabse Bada Rog, Kya Kahenge Log”, which translates to: the most dangerous disease out there is what people will think of me. 

I’ve been a victim of this logic too:

• I wanted to study abroad every year during my undergraduate degree but I said “I’ll do it next year” 

• I wanted to make it big in Cricket, but I said “I’ll practice with focus later” 

• I wanted to start my own business, but I said “I’ll do it when the time is right”

None of it happened.

Here's what I realized - you only live once. You will only have a certain window where freedom is truly more important than money. So stop worrying about what others think. Because others who think negatively of this pursuit are still stuck in mud trying to follow the script.

Go pursue your dream, whatever it is - go work on your startup, go backpack through Southeast Asia, go live in another city! 

And if you find that you’re not in that window anymore, it is STILL better to break the script. Pursuing what you want AT ANY TIME is still better than not pursuing it at all!

Resist that urge, resist pushing it to later or someday

Because someday never comes