What experience are you putting off giving yourself that is relatively doable but would make quite a big difference to you if just went ahead and did it?
Life is short. One of our biggest mistakes is not recognising how little time we have and how quickly once cherished goals can be rendered unattainable because we’ve left things too late. This could be because we didn’t plan ahead well enough, failing health, or because other commitments got in the way. External changes may render them impossible too. We tend to think this applies to big things, a once in a lifetime holiday, for instance, but it can apply to smaller experiences we’re well able to give ourselves.
Recently I took myself off for a weekend of walking and wild camping in west Cornwall. It’s something I try to do around the same time every year. I would have liked to have made more similar excursions this summer. Yet, I’m very good at finding reasons against. Who will protect my lovely vegetable patch from being eaten by slugs and snails? What if I get a last minute bed and breakfast or retreat booking I can’t honour? When will I find the time to get ready? And do I really want to give up a tasty dinner and night in my comfy bed for an unsettled night sleeping outside? Reading these back I feel a fool. They’re all so minor and/or surmountable. As a result I hardly got away this summer.
Which in hindsight I regret, because I got so much from my recent weekend away. I loved revisiting parts of Cornwall I don’t tend to venture to because they’re more than a 1 hour’s drive away. I loved the coastal walks I did, the experience of going to sleep and waking up in a wild place, of meditating on a cliff top to the sounds of nature, of eating a meal on a camp stove while gazing out to sea, of seeing the stars come out and the morning light picking out the engine houses of dramatic Botallack. I visited a favourite old aunt who lives in St.Ives and treated myself to an ice cream from the one and only Jelbert’s in Newlyn. It was drizzling by then but I didn’t care. I’d earned it and it was heaven.
Altogether this trip cost me little more than £40, for fuel and food combined, hardly breaking the bank. It hadn’t taken that long to prepare for, slugs didn’t raze my precious kale to the ground, and the roof of my house hadn’t fallen in while I was away. Most importantly it had provided me with one of my most memorable weekends of the summer and reminded me how good it is to experience new, or at least, less familiar places every so often.
My lesson - that I pass on to you should you be interested? Stop the excuses and make sure to give yourself many more of those easily doable experiences that return far more in meaningfulness than you expect for the time, money, and effort required to make them happen. Because eventually time or any number of reasons will conspire to render them less or even unattainable, especially as age catches up with us. So fill your year with things you’d really like to do that you know you tend to procrastinate over. Be it visits to friends or relatives you seldom see, mini excursions to places you’d like to visit, meals out, or a new activity or craft you’ve always fancied learning. You’ll be surprised what a difference doing them can make.
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