“Someday” always feels like it will be tomorrow. “Tomorrow I will work on that project.” But then, tomorrow is your birthday, and you realize another year has gone by and you didn’t do any work on your project.
My birthday was a few days ago.
I don’t feel older, each day slipped into the next, and I forget time was passing. I only noticed the seasons changing by the life cycle of the flowers I planted. I kept saying, “I will do that tomorrow. I will do that someday.”
And, maybe, just maybe, someday will come before it is too late.
We don’t just put off our lives today; we put them off until our deathbed.
—Steven Pressfield, The War of Art
Someday is some unspecified time in the distant future.
But, we don’t live in the future. We live in today. (Unless you are Michael J. Fox.)
And the only way to live in someday, is to live in today. Click To Tweet“One day you will wonder what was so important that you put off doing the most important things. ‘Someday’ can be a thief in the night.” — Deborah Brown
Someday is a dangerous word
In the airplane scene in the beginning of the movie Knight and Day, Roy Miller, played by Tom Cruise says, “Someday is a dangerous word.”
“Dangerous?” said June Haven, played by Cameron Diaz.
“It is really just code for never,” said Roy Miller, or Tom Cruse who is playing the covert operative Roy Miller, or Patrick O’Neill who wrote the screenplay.
Patrick O’Neill, got it right — Today is Someday.
At the end of the film, Knight and Day, Roy Miller wakes up from being drugged, and asks June Haven, “What day is it?”
June replies, “Someday. Someday Roy.”
And then June and Roy drive away from us, living today their someday. I won’t tell you what happens between the airplane scene and the last scene, that would spoil the movie.
Today is someday
And ever since I saw the movie a few days ago, I keep thinking, Today is someday, Today is someday, Today is someday, Today is someday.
And it is.
Have you ever said, “I will do that someday:”
And then all of a sudden you are ten years older and someday still hasn’t come?
When is your someday?
Are you planning on doing something someday? One (fine) day, one of these days, at a future date, sooner or later, by and by, in due course, in the fullness of time, in the long run.
Never forget: This very moment, we can change our lives. There never was a moment, and never will be, when we are without the power to alter our destiny. This second, we can turn the tables on resistance. This second we can sit down and do our work.
— Steven Pressfield, The War of Art
Is today someday? What will you do today? Can you start today working towards your someday?
Someday you will be dead. But, if you are reading this, you are not dead yet.
Today is today, this second belongs to you. Don’t let a thief in the night steal what is important.
What is important?
Is having all the laundry folded every night important? Is going to bed with no dirty dishes on the counter or in the sink important. Is cleaning all seven litter boxes every day important?
Is writing important? Drawing? I don’t know what is on your list. Only you know.
The only way to get something done is to do it. Someday is today. Make it count. Click To TweetThe lady in the wheelchair
When I was checking in my bags to fly to Nashville last fall, there was a woman at the check-in station next to me. She was in a wheelchair and had an oxygen tank attached to her chair.
Through gasps of air she said to the steward “My husband and I were going to travel together someday. But he died last year of cancer, and now I am in a wheelchair — traveling alone.”
She didn’t let her wheelchair stop her from traveling. But, she seemed so sad that her husband wasn’t with her.
I don’t know why the woman in the wheelchair and her husband put off traveling. Maybe they thought someday was tomorrow.
Maybe just thinking about someday is enough. Holding on to a dream rather than doing the work.
I will start someday — when I won’t make any mistakes
Don’t wait to be perfect before you start. The only way to get better at anything is to risk imperfection.
The only way to do something is to actually do it, and not just think about it, or talk about it, or read a book about it.
Start imperfectly, don't wait for a perfect someday, start where you are now. Click To TweetStart where you are right now. Today is someday.
What do you want to do someday? Please let me know in the comments. I would love to chat.
xo
Pamela
p.s.
One of my “somedays” is to get my paintings in a gallery in New York City. But, guess what. I was going to paint them “someday.”
At the bottom of my posts, I will have a photograph of the painting I am working on. A work in progress. Layer by layer.
