This mentality, from the book “Four Thousand Weeks” by Oliver Burkeman, can keep us from really living our lives.  We push happiness out into the future while we’re waiting for some other day “when I finally”…have more money, or have more time or achieve some milestone.

This week my wife and I drove north and east from Arizona back to our home in Minnesota.  It’s about a 25-hour drive, depending on the route we take.  But we’ve been taking an even longer way home through several of the National Parks in Utah.

These are places we’ve been talking about seeing for many years.

Over the past few years we’ve lost family members, friends and co-workers – as many people have. We thought they were way too young.  Each of them had unfinished business – interests and things they wanted to do or see. Recently, a family member who was just a year away from retirement died suddenly from a heart attack.  He had been looking forward to having the time to complete many home projects along with some automobile restoration projects which was a passion of his and an area where he was very talented.

While we’ve talked about this trip for so long, there was never a good time to squeeze it in with our busy schedules.  We would talk with people about which parks to see – and even planned out a draft itinerary.  Zion National Park near Springdale, UT for its sheer size and majesty.  Then on to Bryce Canyon for its amazing vistas and unique ‘hoodoo’ rock formations in the canyon.  And finally, on to Moab, UT and Arches National Park for, well, the arches formed in the rock by erosion from the weather.

And we had many recommendations on where to stay and where to eat.

But we were waiting for, “When we finally have more time.”

We decided not to wait any more.  The conditions and timing will likely never be perfect.

So, this week we’ve been off making memories and creating new stories to tell – and I encourage you to pursue your dreams as well!