DO I DARE DISTURB THE UNIVERSE?

“There will be time, there will be time

To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;

There will be time to murder and create,

And time for all the works and days of hands

That lift and drop a question on your plate;

Time for you and time for me,

And time yet for a hundred indecisions,

And for a hundred visions and revisions,

Before the taking of a toast and tea.”

Some of you will recognize this as an excerpt from “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S. Eliot. Some of you won’t — and that’s OK. Really. No poetry snob, I.

I simply wanted to throw it out there as a kind of nearing-the-end-of-the-year conversation spark…because we all find ourselves at one time or another — frequently at year’s end — questioning whether or not we’re running out of time. Seems there’s never enough of it. And if you’re a late bloomer to this dream actualization thing like I am — having phoned in more years than I’d care to admit, while immersed in what I whimsically refer to as a corporate coma — you might frequently pose the question “Do I have enough time to pull it off?”

In a short span of time, I’ve started my own business; seen it succeed; made it grow; written a book; written another; swum the Golden Gate (and escaped from Alcatraz); re-entered the corporate arena; started another book); and along the way opened up more doors to my talents and potential than I ever thought possible. But I can never shake the notion that I’m still catching up…that I’m doing now what I should have done decades ago…that I’m never going to have as much time as I need to dare and develop all those things dreamed of in my newly enlightened state.

Sound like someone you might know?

It’s been a difficult, trying, challenging year for all of us. A dream squasher of a year in many respects, and many of us are questioning ourselves and doubting ourselves and thinking maybe it’s best that we back off a little and hold on to what we’ve got. Can’t argue with counting your blessings. But that doesn’t mean you ignore the options and opportunities and new dreams available out there, either.