Blog Post #21: More Tale of Two Cities

I’m sorry that I keep throwing all this deep literature stuff at you, but I really, really like this part of the book.

“And all of us have like wonders hidden in our breasts, only needing circumstances to evoke them.”

And I know that what Dickens is literally talking about here is the people’s obsession with the guillotine, but I like to think that it could be applied to anything. Really read it and it is; it’s about anyone wanting to do anything with their lives.

People go through an entire lifetime before finally finding the time to go for their dreams.

“Sometimes all you need is twenty seconds of insane courage; just literally twenty seconds of just embarrassing bravery. And I promise you, something great will come of it.” – We Bought a Zoo

It might be a long shot, but I think I can relate this to “How I Met Your Mother”. In the episode “False Positive”, everyone starts thinking that Marshall and Lily are having a baby and doing something meaningful with their lives. They start thinking about their dreams and what they should be doing instead of, say buying diamond suits and waking up to do a worthless news show at 4:30AM.

Really, these are things they’ve been thinking about doing for a while; it just was pushed away.  As Robin says,

“Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.”

Right now, at this very moment, as you’re reading this, you are younger than you will ever be and you have what seems like an infinite amount of time to make things happen. So you put it off, and say, “Oh, I’ll do this later. I need something to start this. I need this, or I need that.”

The truth is, you don’t. You don’t need the “circumstances” that Dickens, or Robin, or Barney needed. You need to get off the computer, and think about what you want, and figure out how to make it happen, and go do it. You’re not going to get anything by waiting for it to land in your lap. You are not a dog, and you don’t get treats by being a “good boy.” You are a strong, independent human being in a crazy, competitive world. If you don’t work for what you want, or what you believe in, someone else is going to take that dream farther than you ever would have.

So, don’t think about the future or what if this happens or that happens. Focus on the present, and like Barney says, “DO!”