“If Only ___ Would Happen, I’d Live My Best Chapter”

How many of us are waiting for conditions to be perfect before we feel that we’re living our best chapter?

I used to think that if I won that Lottery, if I published this book, if I sold that article, if I could go on this trip …then I’d be able to live the life I dreamed of.

I’ve come to understand that many of the things I was waiting for were beyond my control. And more importantly, they were all outside of myself. If I kept waiting and waiting, I’d put off living my life.

I may not have everything I want. But I can take certain steps today to get those things. A flower doesn’t wait for the perfect garden to grow in: it makes that beauty happen. A snail keeps venturing across the path, even if it seems like it’s taking forever, it is still moving forward. We can start that symphony, skip down the street, sing a new song. We can be brilliant, divine and spectacular. We can shine.

“If only’s” are lonely. I don’t have to wait to start doing what I can to make this my best chapter. I can take the smallest step and begin today.

“Life holds so much — so much to be so happy about always,” said Arthur Rubinstein. “Most people ask for happiness on condition. Happiness can be felt only if you don’t set conditions.”

What are you waiting for? What project or goal can you move toward, beginning right where you are, just for today?

About dianabletter

Diana Bletter is the author of several books, including The Invisible Thread: A Portrait of Jewish American Women (with photographs by Lori Grinker), shortlisted for a National Jewish Book Award. Her novel, A Remarkable Kindness, (HarperCollins) was published in 2015. She is the First Prize Winner of Moment Magazine's 2019 Fiction Contest. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Commentary, tabletmag, Glamour, The Forward, The North American Review, Times of Israel, and is a reporter for Israel21C, and many other publications. She is author of Big Up Yourself: It's About Time You Like Being You and The Mom Who Took off On Her Motorcycle, a memoir of her 10,000-mile motorcycle trip to Alaska and back to New York. She lives in a small beach village in Western Galilee, Israel, with her husband and family. She is a member of the local hevra kadisha, the burial circle, and a Muslim-Jewish-Christian-Druze women's group in the nearby town of Akko. And, she likes snowboarding and climbing trees.

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