I was recently scrolling through my pinterest in search of some lovely lettering, now of corse lovely lettering mostly accompanies lovely quotes - I scrolled past most of these firmly fixed on my hunt for a christmassy type face, but then one really stood out to me:
"The trouble is, you think you have time"
I'm always saying to myself I'll do that tomorrow, next week, next year, always thinking I have all the time in the world to do everything I've ever wanted. When really whats wrong with today, why not do it now and start slowly making my aspirations more of my reality.
One prime example of this is wanting to learn Spanish - Five years ago I visited Bilbao, in Spain, while there my friend who I was with became sick and needed to go to hospital. Now this became a very stressful experience, mainly due to the language barrier (and my friend needing hospital attention of corse). We couldn't speak Spanish and most of the staff in the hospital couldn't speak English, at least not fluently enough for us to understand what was going on. This experience made me realise how much we rely upon other nationalities being able to speak English, perhaps arrogantly so, and that really I should set about learning more languages myself.
Through out the rest of our trip I kept saying how much I wanted to learn Spanish and that I'd certainly get lessons when I was back in England. Now of corse back in England I didn't get lessons, I started University a few weeks later and other focuses took over. Yet throughout the past five years I'd throw into various conversations how I'd love to learn spanish, still not act upon it, my friend who I'd holidayed with would jokingly ask me how the spanish was going!!
In September I saw Spanish classes were available in my local college, and I thought it's now or never, so I enrolled upon a beginners Spanish class and have just completed my first 12 weeks. When I asked my tutor how long it would take someone to learn Spanish fluently, his reply was roughly four years. If I'd just taken those Spanish classes five years ago when I said I would, I'd be fluent by now. It's fair to say I'm not a natural when it comes to Spanish but I'm going to continue on the course, cause I don't want to delay making my bilingual dream a reality by another five years.
This quote really made me think about all of the things I put off doing, mainly because I'm scared. Now that I'm slowing ticking Spanish off my list I also intend to focus more upon my other big aspiration and that's designing. This one is a biggie, and one which will take a lot of time to progress, but like all things the sooner you start the sooner you'll get there. Post to follow on my first real dip into the world of card designs!
Stop putting off till tomorrow what you can start today, cause the only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time!
