Well Pogue,

Last Monday I asked you how you would live this year if this was the last year, ever. If on 31st December the world just stopped. What did you think? Indeed, did you think?

I’ve asked some others and there seems to be a big gap in the responses. There are some who immediately know they would sell up and tour the world on a motorbike, or climb a mountain or launch that business they’ve been thinking about so long. They’d do this even though it could only last 365 days because they have something to prove, firstly to the naysayers, but mostly to themselves. And those who’d take a chance and ask that other person to share the rest of their life. We do love a little romance🥰

Then there are those who pondered, knowing there are things they’d like to do but not able to push off. To make a start. They’ve a clear idea of that thing that is in their dreams. It’s probably been there a long time. But it has been, and remains, a dream. Even the thought of never doing, achieving, experiencing it is enough to motivate them. Knowing and never doing. It sounds torturous.

Finally there are those who would just go into eternity doing the same old, same old. Caught in the treadmill of life. Unimaginative and unmotivated, they will repeat a single day 365 times. That’s not life, that’s existence. There are many many people who repeat the same day over and over and call it a life. I don’t think so.

So which group do you find yourself in?

I really hope that it is the first because I’m now thinking that actually living life belongs to a fairly exclusive club. Not that anyone is excluded except by their own decision or maybe, more accurately, their own indecision.

My thoughts, and I stress they are mine and may be mine alone, are that a life run on a “rinse, repeat” cycle is not a life at all. We’ve allowed ourselves to believe that existing is living and it’s not. Life is an adventure of mind, body and spirit. It has to be grasped. It has to be got. Chased down if you like. Written.

Do you remember that on our previous home we had a plaque on the door that we had made? Remember? It said “Life is not yet written”. One of our better thoughts, I’m thinking. Life is not written! Today is a plank page and you hold the pen. Many will finish the day with a single word written, “Repeat”. But you and I? We’re writing a story, a novel, a classic.

This year give your imagination free range and leave your fears at home. Exult in the possibilities. And if you want inspiration, read Jonathon Livingstone Seagull again to find out about a life lived to the full. I started my year with it😎

Now, only 358 days worth of writing left. Where’s my pen?

Yours, aspiring to write a classic,

Wic.