I like the words, spoken by Mr Bjorn Low when he was interviewed for the book “Men of Singapore”: “Passion has a timeline. It is important, so don’t leave it until you retire, or it might not be there waiting for you.” In his case, he wants to become a farmer, so he knows that if he waits until he retires, he won’t have the energy and strength to work as a farmer.

Key reason for pursuing passion

The key reason why I believe we should not hold off pursuing our passions is that we never know what tomorrow will bring. Will tomorrow come for me? We always live on the basis that we can always do something tomorrow, but as each day passes, the probability that tomorrow might not come for us will become higher.

Limited time on earth

Ahh, I’m being my sensitive self again maybe because my birthday has just passed and I believe I already hit the midpoint timeline of my life. There is this nagging feeling that I only have a limited amount of time on earth to do what I wanted to do and up till this point in life, I feel that I have yet to achieve much. Each day brings with itself an urgency to accomplish my goals. If the day went well and I did what I wanted for the day, I felt wonderful. I felt more confident that tomorrow will be another day like this. Likewise, if I was lazy or spent time just letting time passed by, I felt that I have wasted my precious time. Of course, I have learnt to catch myself during down times like these before the moods spiral into more negative emotions, and motivated myself that I will do better starting from now. Jack Sai, another of the men interviewed in the book, said it right, “You have to be willing to fail but not give up. As much as you wish to succeed, you have to also realize that success will not be overnight.”

Mental attitude is most important

It is common to fall short of our own expectations. The most important is not to give up. I have learnt that I can lift my mood there and then when I don’t fall into the trap of leaving positive actions that I need to take until tomorrow saying that “tomorrow will be a better day”. Instead, I inspire myself to do it there and then, as this will make my mood better as my day will then end on a positive note because I have taken action now, and not sometime in the future. Your mental attitude will determine how your day will be like more than anything else, so keeping guard of your mental chatter is of utmost importance. “Taking action now” is the best habit that one can develop, because the only gift we all have is “the present”. When you take positive action today, it’s no doubt that tomorrow will definitely be a better day.