“I’ll do (fill in the blank) when things settle down.” We hear this a lot … and I’d be lying if I said I’ve never done this myself. When things settle down, I’ll talk to that person. When things settle down, I’ll get married. When things settle down, we’ll have kids. When things settle down, I’ll start that business I’ve always wanted. When things settle down, I’ll purse my calling.
The phrase “when things settle down …” will steal your life away if you’re not careful. I know people who have been saying “when things settle down …” for several years, and there’s still no “settling down” in sight.
In the last few years we’ve personally had a broken arm, loss of eye sight, heart attack, gall bladder surgery, broken appliances, fence repairs, fluctuating income, lots of travel for business, taxes to pay, landscape repairs, and loss of pets. If anyone has great reasons to say, “when things settle down …,” it’s us. But honestly, if we said, “We’ll help people make their impact when things settle down,” we’d be stuck with a cool idea and absolutely no progress.
Things rarely ever settle down. And in all honesty we (you and I) don’t need things to settle down. Instead we need clear values and priorities. We need to have a crystal clear sense of what’s really important and make time for these things – even when things haven’t settled down.
What is so important for you to do even when things aren’t settled down? These are things that rarely have deadlines – they often are not on the “urgent do it now” list. But they, in fact, should be on your “urgent do it now” list because these are the really important things. At the end of your life, these are the things that you’ll regret if you didn’t ever get around to them because life never settled down.
