Everybody has said it.
“We should go to that game.”
“We should take that trip.”
“We should get everybody together.”
There’s something wonderfully optimistic about we should. For about thirty seconds, everybody is completely committed. The trip is practically booked. You can see the stadium, feel the sun, taste the first beer.
Then Monday happens.
Work gets busy. Somebody can’t get Friday off. Flights are expensive. One guy has a kid’s soccer tournament. Dave has to check with his wife.
And just like that, a perfectly good adventure gets sentenced to that strange purgatory where great ideas go to die.
Six months later somebody brings it up again.
“Man, we still need to do that.”
Yeah.
You do.
The funny thing is, when you think about the stories you still tell with your friends, almost none of them started because it was particularly convenient.
Somebody bought the tickets. Somebody booked the room. Somebody loaded the truck. Somebody finally got tired of talking about it and said:
“Fuck it. Let’s go.”
And off you went.
Maybe the weather sucked. Maybe somebody booked the wrong hotel. Maybe your team got destroyed. Maybe the fishing was terrible and the golf was worse.
Twenty years later, none of that matters.
In fact, sometimes the disasters become the best part of the story.
That’s one of the strange things about life. The moments that eventually mean the most rarely announce themselves when they arrive. There’s no music playing in the background. Nobody taps you on the shoulder and says, “Pay attention, because you guys are going to talk about this afternoon for the next 25 years.”
It’s just Saturday.
You’re sitting in a parking lot before a game with people you love, drinking a beer and laughing about something stupid.
You’re on the boat.
You’re standing on the first tee.
You’re driving somewhere with the windows down.
You’re watching your kid play.
You’re sitting next to your dad in the same seats you’ve sat in a hundred times before.
It feels ordinary.
Until one day it isn’t.
And maybe that’s the part we don't appreciate enough.
We tend to think “living the life you want” requires some enormous change. Quit the job. Sell everything. Move to Costa Rica. Buy a van and start drinking things out of coconuts.
Maybe.
But I think most of the good life is much closer than that.
It’s showing up for the people, places and passions that already matter to you.
Because there aren’t an unlimited number of Saturdays.
There aren’t an unlimited number of football seasons with your dad. Your kids won’t always be kids. The same group of friends won’t always live twenty minutes apart. Bodies get older. People move. Life changes.
That doesn't make the story sad.
It makes today valuable.
Eventually, you realize that the game wasn't interrupting your life.
The fishing trip wasn't interrupting your life.
The weekend away with your friends wasn't interrupting your life.
That was your life.
And somewhere along the way, “We should…” becomes “Remember when…”
Remember when we drove all night?
Remember when the boat broke down?
Remember when we somehow got those tickets?
Remember when we thought that was a shortcut?
You laugh.
Somebody tells the story wrong.
Everybody argues about what actually happened.
And for a few minutes, you're right back there.
That's the collection worth building.
So maybe there’s something you’ve been talking about doing.
You don't need a life coach.
You probably don't need a vision board.
You might just need to text the people you'd want standing next to you in the story someday.
Pick the weekend.
Buy the tickets.
Make the reservation.
And when somebody inevitably starts explaining why next month might be easier, there is only one reasonable response.
Fuck it. Let’s go.
Someday, “Remember when…” will be worth a hell of a lot more than “We should.”
Live the LYFE.