It's Never Too Late

What is holding you back from living the kind of life that you really want to live? When I was a teenager, nothing excited me more than the prospect of publishing a magazine. It wasn’t enough to just write for another publication and call myself a published writer. I tried that; some of my work was published while other pieces were not. Plus, I wanted complete control over both the editorial and the business side of a magazine.

So what did I do? I decided to start my own magazine. When I announced my plan, it was met with a lot of resistance. Still, I had the encouragement of my family and close friends to embark on such a large task, especially at 16 years old. I really had no idea what I was doing so it was scary for me. I believe some people allow fear to hold them back from their life dreams. It is so easy to become comfortable in our everyday lives that we forever dim our light to dream, to step out, see what the end will bring.

I was very scared. I was scared of wasting money (and I didn’t have much at all), scared of friends and family seeing me fail and mostly scared of the naysayers’ “didn’t I tell you?” I still trudged on, researching magazine formats, themes, editorial content, layout, pricing, distribution, etc. One of my high school teachers believed in me so much that she allowed the time I should have been concentrating on class work to focus on building my magazine.

Was the magazine a success? It depends on how you define success. I no longer publish the magazine but at the time, it circulated five states and was sold in five local bookstores. But something bigger happened in my life as a result of publishing the magazine. It gave me voice and encouragement. It also led me to a $20,000 college scholarship. It led me to become a Chips Quinn Scholar and to intern at The Tennessean in Nashville. It led me to an interview with Oprah Winfrey’s father who told me that my drive and ambition reminded him of his daughter. “All you have to do is keep up the momentum,” he said. Those were all life-defining moments for me.

I was so worried about failure and my perceived notion of success that it almost made me stop pursuing this dream. There are many of you who are seeking a major career change in life, or who want to start a business, or pursue a hidden and buried talent, but it’s so much easier to say, “well I’m married now, I have kids now, I’m too old to dream, I don’t have the time, I don’t have the money, I don’t have the patience it would take, it’s not realistic, I don’t have the knowledge somebody else has.” So after all of those excuses, what’s left? Two things: first, the comfort of following that same ole day to day schedule, which may or may not ever encourage growth in your life, and second, what Langston Hughes would call a dream deferred.

Today marks the first day of the rest of your life. Today, as you read these words, commit to changing your own outlook. Don’t walk blindly through each day depending on a set routine. There’s comfort in familiarity but remember – even our comforts could be snatched from us at a moment’s notice. Fear doesn’t exist anywhere except in the mind, and opportunity waits for no one. Own it and know it for yourself, that you are destined for great things; you just have to boldly walk over and open the door when it knocks. It’s never too late.