This Is Your Only Go!

Peter Comrie | Full Spectrum Leadership Inc.

Somewhere in the back of most closets there’s a suit, or a dress, hanging in a dry-cleaning bag. You know the one. It’s been waiting for the right occasion. The occasion worth wearing it to.

There’s probably also a set of dishes. The good ones. The ones you received as a gift, or inherited, or saved up for. They live in the cupboard, carefully wrapped, waiting for company worthy of them.

And there’s a phone call you’ve been meaning to make.

Here’s what I’ve come to understand after seven decades on this planet: we are all, in some quiet corner of our lives, in rehearsal mode. Treating this particular day as a warm-up for the real performance. Saving the good stuff for later, the honest words, the generous gesture, the full effort, as if later is a guaranteed delivery.

It isn’t.

This is your only go.

Not a dress rehearsal. Not the practice round. Not the warm-up before the real thing begins. This is it, the singular, non-renewable, unrepeatable experience of being alive in the body you have, with the people you love, in the time you’ve been given.

That might sound like a heavy thought. I find it to be a liberating one.

Because if this is your only go, then the question changes. It stops being what am I saving this for? and becomes why am I waiting?

Make the call.
The one you’ve been thinking about for three weeks. The one where you tell someone what they mean to you, or ask for forgiveness, or simply say: I’ve been thinking about you. Make it today. Not because you have to, because you want to, and because later is not a promise anyone has made you.

Tell the people you love that you love them.
Out loud. In words. Not assumed, not implied, not communicated through continued presence. Said. Spoken. Given as a gift that costs nothing and means everything.

Give thanks for this human experience.
Not in spite of its difficulty, for all of it. For the complexity and the weight of it, for the moments that broke you open and the ones that put you back together. Gratitude for this life, in its full and imperfect entirety, is one of the most powerful acts available to us.

Wear your best clothes.
Not for the occasion, as the occasion. You are a person alive on this particular day, which no one has ever been before, and no one will be again. That seems like reason enough.

Shine your shoes. Not because anyone will notice. Because you will. And because the discipline of showing up fully in the small things is exactly the same discipline as showing up fully in the large ones. There is no separation.

Buy the best sheets.
Sleep in them every night. You are not a guest in your own life, waiting to be given permission to enjoy it. Move in. Take up residence. Make yourself at home in the life you have.

I spent a morning recently talking about this with a group of people I have the privilege of learning alongside. We got deep into it, which particular version of deferral each of us carries, which calls we haven’t made, which words we’ve been holding back. It was one of those conversations that stays with you.

What struck me was how consistent the pattern is. Not laziness, not ingratitude, just a quiet, habitual sense that the full expression of this life is somehow scheduled for later. For when things settle down. For when we’ve earned it. For when the time is right.

The time is now. It has always been now.

If there’s a call to make, make it.
If there’s a word to say, say it.
If there’s a quality of presence you’ve been holding in reserve, bring it forward.

You don’t get a second run at this particular day. You get this one.

That’s not a reason for anxiety. It’s a reason for full engagement, with the people around you, with the work you’ve been given to do, with the ordinary and extraordinary experience of being alive.

This is your only go.

Make it a good one.

Peter Comrie is the founder of Full Spectrum Leadership Inc. and has spent four decades working with leaders committed to showing up fully, in their organizations and in their lives.

Let’s Keep Talking!

Peter Comrie
Co-Founder and Human Capital Specialist at Full Spectrum Leadership Inc.
Reach out to me at peter@fullspectrumleadership.com

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Reach me on Linkedin; https://www.linkedin.com/in/petercomrie/

Tags: leadership, personal development, intentional living, gratitude, full spectrum leadership, Peter Comrie, living fully, life purpose, mindfulness, showing up