The Luxury and Tyranny of "One Day"

How often have you heard yourself say, “One day, I’ll…“. This phrase captures the tension between dreaming about the future and the risk of never actualising those dreams. It’s both a luxury and a tyranny.

“One Day” allows you to maintain hope and dream about future possibilities. It comforts you that there's time to achieve what you desire, even if you are not in a position to do so at the moment.

It provides a mental escape from immediate pressures or realities and allows you to imagine a better future without the burden of immediate action. The open-ended nature of "One Day" provides flexibility, letting you adjust your plans as circumstances change.

A friend of mine, let’s call him Allan because that’s his name, asked me to hold his wallet in a store. I noticed he had wads of dockets, and I commented that he should sort them out. He told me they weren’t dockets. They were lottery tickets. I asked him why he hadn’t checked them, as he might be rich. He replied that is why he hasn’t—he wanted to keep hope alive.

But “One Day” can lead to endless procrastination as you repeatedly put off important tasks or goals, never taking the necessary steps to realise them. It can offer a false sense of comfort, creating an illusion that there is plenty of time and preventing you from taking urgent or necessary actions.

And repeatedly deferring action can lead to regret. Especially as you get older, you may realise you have yet to achieve your goals or live up to your potential because you always assumed there would be more time.

So what do you do if you don’t want to deny yourself the luxury of dreaming and you don’t want to live with regrets?

Don’t put off the things that matter most to you where you can, so you can let go of the other roads not travelled when you have to.