Stop Making Plans and get busy Living Life

In 21 days I will be 49 which means in just 387 days I will be fifty.  It can’t be true.  I can’t be nearly 50.  I haven’t decided what I want to do when I grow up.  I haven’t done all the things I dreamed about when I was a kid.  It turns out John Lennon was right “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans”.

Or in my case life is what happened when I was busy doing other things. Don’t get me wrong, many of those things were important.  I’ve raised two sons, got a good job and own my own home (ok so I’ve got a mortgage but one day it will be mine).  I’ve swam with dolphins, seen the pyramids and changed the law but I haven’t exactly set the world on fire.  When I was kid I believed I could fix the world (thanks for that one Mam) but now I know that isn’t true.  But I still believe I can make a difference because we all can if we try.  So today I’m setting myself two challenges:

Challenge 1: By 5 August 2015 (the day I’m 49) find 5iftyby5ifty.  That’s 50 thing’s I will do before I’m 50.  I don’t know what these things will be yet but they must all be something I’ve dreamed of doing, something that makes a difference to others or something that’s just a little bit crazy or wild.  I’m not rich so they won’t be things that cost a fortune (unless anyone has some spare cash they want to donate) and I have Multiple Sclerosis so I won’t be running any marathons or climbing any mountains but hopefully with the help of my friends and family I will come up with a list that will be exciting and challenging.

Challenge 2: And this is the hard one.  By 5 August 2016, when I reach the big 50 I hope I will have completed everything on my list.  To do it I will have to average one thing every week (that gives me a two week break) so it could be hard going.  I could add things to the list I’ve already done but that would be cheating so I’ll be starting from scratch and hope to write about what I do on this website.

Over the next week I’ll add new pages and use social media to ask people help create my list.  I don’t know if many people will be interested but maybe I’ll get some ideas.  I don’t know if anyone will read what I have to say but by the time I’m 50 I hope I’ll be able to say I stopped making plans and got busy living life.