Several times I’ve sat down to start blogging again. Each time I’ve been terrified by the prospect that I should be blogging regularly. The thing is, it doesn’t take me too long to write a blog post. Updating this site once a week should be easy but I suppose we all find our lives too complicated, too full.

I read somewhere recently that the biggest life regret of people on their deathbed was endless postponement of the decision to choose to be who they wanted to be. People are so wrapped up in their responsibilities and in their fears that they put off the decision to truly live.

I wonder how long I could put off blogging. I wonder how long I could put of completing my novel. Perhaps I could never come back to this. Perhaps I’ll never finish my book. Or my books rather – I’ve started so many that I may never finish even one.

It starts with one easy decision. I’m choosing to write my blog today. Choosing to keep something in your life is a decision you have to make every day. It’s one you have to keep making, for as long as you consider that to be important to you.

When it comes down to it many of us are addicted to the results but unwilling to put in all the work that is needed. I look forward to the day that I’ll be holding a paperback of my book in my hands. Before I get to that point there are two years of writing, editing and maybe even another re-draft before I send it off to a publisher. That’s a daunting prospect. However much I want the finished product, good intentions won’t get me there. Only hard work will.

Sure, sometimes life might get in the way. It’s too complicated. We can’t always religiously follow through with our commitments, try as we might. As my dad always says, though, “The way to hell is paved with good intentions.”

There’s always a new opportunity to renew our commitments. I haven’t blogged in over six months. Yet I can still pick up where I left off through the decision I’ve made today. Sometimes, that’s all it takes. Maybe I’ll blog every week for a year. Or every week for ten years. Maybe this is the last time I’ll ever blog – who knows?

As Seneca once wrote “the present is short, the future is doubtful, the past is certain.” We can’t change what we’ve done wrong in the past, but the present will pass us by if we let it. Will we always do the right thing by ourselves? Well, that’s anyone’s guess. It all comes down to how you use today.

There must be something you think of when you read this. There must be a commitment that you’ve let fall by the wayside. It’s never too late. You can pick up that instrument, you can get back into learning that language, you can write that novel or paint that artwork. What can you do in the present to make it a commitment of the future, not just the past?