We have a runner

A friend of mine is a primary school teacher. Every now and then a small boy in her care takes the notion to escape. He glances around and decides he has had quite enough of literacy hour, story-time and number games. He wants out. So up he stands, and off he goes.

“We have a runner,” she cries.

This inspirational little lad got me thinking.

At what age do we decide that the proper thing to do is to stick things out? Suck them up? Plainly get on with it?

I rather like Paul Arden’s books. Paul Arden was the executive creative director of one of the most creative agencies in the world. He was inspirational. He commands us to,

"Simply change your life.
The world is what you think of it.
So think of it differently and your life will change."

                                                                    Paul Arden

We all want things out of life. I want shelves full of books, a shaggy dog, and to live near the beach. We all want things, but how many of us will go out and make the sacrifices necessary to get there? How many of us are brave enough to run?

There is a point on a runway during takeoff that a plane reaches a certain speed. Once it passes this speed it has reached the point of no return. The point where the take off cannot be aborted. The plane has to take off. Or crash.

We wait for the right time without ever knowing how to define ‘right’. The simple truth is that there is never a right time. The stars don’t all suddenly line up in one neat little row to show us the way.

It’s called a leap of faith for a good reason. It’s a risk. And the outcome is far from certain. And that is why we tend to put off these life-changing decisions.

So if we want to be good, if we look around and are quite fed up of sticking it out, well maybe the answer is to create our own false ‘maximum speed’ markers in the runway.

Set it. Stick to it. And then say ‘what the hell’ and run like mad.