I can’t remember who told me it, or if it is a piece of wisdom I read somewhere, but the most profound piece of advice I have received was about the passage of time when it comes to making decisions, namely ‘that time will pass regardless of what you do’.
I am sure we have all been there before, where we really want to do a certain activity – a degree, a learning course, running a marathon, travel – but are worried about how much time it will take. I think I had this a lot with my career, where so much of the training takes multiple years. I would get very in my head about the fact that if I did this training, then I wouldn’t finish it until I was x amount of years older, until I heard the advice that the time will pass regardless of what I do: I will be 2 years older in 2 years time, regardless of whether or not I actually do this training. The real question is do I want to be able to stand there, 2 years older after 2 years have passed, and think ‘damn I should have done that training’, or do I want to be thinking ‘wow I’m so glad I have finished/nearly finished this training’.
I still think about this advice often, because there are still big projects I want to work on that I sometimes feel like I will be too old for soon. I can’t really give examples but we have all this situation arise and had the same thought. And I often have to take a step back and realise that time will continue to march on no matter what I choose to do. So do I want to spend that time wishing I had started sooner, or just start today and see where we get to?
The other profound piece of advice I go back to often is advice I actually saw on a TikTok video where someone said ‘if no one is coming to save you, that means no one is coming to stop you either’ and it truly did awaken something in me. Not that I have spent a lot of time wanting someone else to save me (I am far too much of a control freak to ever be in that position) but I will often not take a certain action because I am worried someone will tell me to stop it, that this is not something I should be doing, or that this is a silly endeavour and to give up. But when I heard that phrase, it was like a lightbulb had been switched on in my brain somewhere that suddenly stopped having those doubts. No one is coming to save me, and therefore no one is going to come and stop me, so just do the thing.
Taylor Talks Vegan 