COLUMN: 'If there's something you'd love to do...then you owe it to yourself to pursue it'

I love to sing though not everyone loves to listen when I feel so inclined.

That doesn’t stop me though because I am following my desire to find the path that allows me to be content, experience happiness and pursue something for which I have a passion.

It’s one of several things I enjoy and one of the many reasons I enjoy a peaceful life.

I am free of any expectations on myself to be brilliant at something or to compare myself to anyone else.

How many of us stifle or even strangle our creativity for the sake of only doing what’s expected?

How many of us are working in jobs that are perfectly adequate but that bring us no joy or contentment?

How many more of us are simply filling roles just for the security they bring, for the box ticking exercise of meeting other people’s expectations of who we should be?

If there’s something in this life you’d love to do, be it baking, burlesque or bonsai, then you owe it to yourself to pursue that thing.

If there’s a job you’d love to do that’s a complete departure from where you are now, make a plan to make it a reality.

I don’t mean give up your job today and start basket weaving full time, unless you’re already lucky enough to have a healthy enough bank balance to facilitate you! I mean start by making a plan.

Investigate how you can begin taking steps in that direction and put pieces in place so that you can begin to realise that the only difference between dreams and a new reality is effort, motivation and discipline.

Of course that doesn’t mean you can’t simply decide to drop everything and move to The Bahamas. You just have to know how you’re going to live once you get there.

The main point here is that life is short and you only get one. It seems a shame to limit yourself to just living a ‘what if’ life.

There’s a lot in the axiom that in life and at its final tally, you only regret the things you didn’t do.

None of us is guaranteed tomorrow and none of us can see our future. It seems to me that we have to realise at some point that we only get today to live and that living our days without wringing all the juice out of them seems something of a waste.

Sure, we all live on a hamster wheel of responsibility and expectation. It’s why we don’t throw caution to the wind, because what will happen if it all goes wrong?

Let me tell you.

I’m 52 in two months time and I’ve had far more jobs, careers and hustles than most.

What I’ve learned over all these peaks and troughs is that you may try and fail but that just means you get to try something else, or try again but with more information, more experience and more understanding of what failure tastes like.

In the end it makes success all the sweeter.

Probably the funniest thing is that in all the trials and tribulations, I only managed to polish the rough diamond into something that loves to sparkle in the light.

I live with the knowledge that what I do isn’t defining who I am, it’s the other way round. I define what I do by bringing all that experience, all the learning what pitfalls to look out for, all the learning about people and what makes them tick, with me.

It’s so much more important to be at peace in yourself than to please anyone else. It’s so important to be true to yourself, honest with yourself and brave enough to tell yourself if where you are needs to change.

That, and if you’d be better off learning mime than trying to sing though for some things it won’t be how well you perform, it will be that you perform.

I’ve sung on stage with much better singers but because I performed my little heart out, the crowd responded in kind.

It’s up to each of us to examine the life we lead and look to give it the best fighting chance we can.

The best way of doing that may be as simple as trying a hobby we’ve secretly always wanted to do, or to go back to education and carve a new career path.

It may be moving counties, countries or continents, but none of us should live a life unexamined, a life lived in a humdrum fashion with nothing that excites us or makes us realise we are alive.

Often that only happens when we are taking a risk.

We feel that gut wrenching fear as we take the plunge or the existential dread of not having security, safety.

We all crave security but as long as we stay in a comfortable space we can never grow, never find out the very edges of our potential. Maybe you are destined to walk white sand beaches in the Maldives or to climb through Nepal.

Maybe you’ll learn to play the low whistle and feel the joy of being part of a trad session on a Friday night, going home content and happy.

Do what brings you joy.

Do what fulfils you.

You will only ever have this life in which to try.

Make the most of it.