It Isn't too Late

Good Morning,

By now you know I like reading Louis L’Amour books.  It is amazing how often, whether he intended it or not, a piece of real wisdom comes through in his writing.  Such is the case in the following excerpt from “The Burning Hills”.

A man has to face up to himself sometime or other.  You can go on being satisfied or ducking the issue only so long and then there comes a time when you start asking yourself, not what you’ve done with your summer’s wages, but with your whole life up to that minute. More often than not, the answer you have to give yourself isn’t a happy one.

The thing a man has to realize is that it is never too late.  I’ve known of many a man who has braced up and made something of himself after he was forty, with nothing to show for the years before that, but scars and cluttering up of dead wishes.  About the worst thing a man can do is to let a dream die.

I love that last line.  The cost of letting a dream die is a steep one indeed. To get to the end of life and have had setbacks trying is much better than having had no setbacks because of not trying.  The price of not growing isn’t worth paying. The exciting thing, as L’Amour states, is that it isn’t too late. As long as you have breath there is time.  Consider these folks who didn’t achieve their measure of success until later in life.

• Ray Kroc was 59 when he bought his first McDonalds
• Julia Child was 50 when she published her first cookbook
• Henry Ford was 45 when he released the first Model T
• Samuel L. Jackson was 46 when he got his first starring role
• Harland Sanders was 62 when he first franchised KFC

What would it be like to add your name to the list above? What have you been putting off starting?  What change do you need to make in your life that is holding you back? What lie are you believing about yourself that you need to take captive?

Is today the day you “face up to yourself” and realize that it is not too late to chase your dream?  One thing I know, you may or may not achieve renowned success, but you will not carry the regret that accompanies not having tried.

Live this week on purpose,
Ron Klopfenstein