“First you have to know. . . know, not fear, that some day you’re going to die.”

- Brad Pitt as Tyler Durden in Fight Club.

I’m a huge fan of the movie Fight Club .  There’s some gratuitous violence and some of the scenes are a bit dark, but if you can stomach the blood and dark humor, this is a movie full of life lessons - especially for the men of my generation.

One of the pervasive themes of the movie is that everyone should have a sense of urgency in finding - and fulfilling - their life purpose. This sense of urgency is created by a simple universal fact - we are all going to die. And there’s a very real chance that our time will come unpredictably.

This unpredictability of the end fuels my ambition and drives my “ready, fire, aim” approach to my business and often my life.  I have made some aggressive moves that were not always prudent and sacrificed much to fulfill my life purpose of being a professional martial arts instructor.  And I wouldn’t trade any of the resulting temporary pain and loss for my previous life as a government lawyer.  It’s not that being a lawyer is a bad thing - it just wasn’t my life purpose.

I firmly believe that it is better to regret what you have done that what you haven’t.  Waiting for conditions to be ideal before setting off to do what you were meant to do is waiting for a day that will never come.  Telling yourself “it just doesn’t seem like the right time” is almost always telling yourself that you are making fear-based decisions.  So, with many people still kicking around New Year’s resolutions, I have a few to suggest:

Risk.

Fail.

Adjust.

Repeat.

It’s too easy to get lulled to sleep with 500 channels and the mute gray of cubicle walls.  Life is short.  Unfortunately most of us are not blessed with a near-death experience to understand that fact.