A pause is better than a wrong turn.
"There is more to life than increasing its speed. " - Mahatma Ghandi
There’s a reason I haven’t published anything new over the last few weeks.
Life has thrown me a few curveballs that are taking up all of my attention, which means that my focus is elsewhere. As a result, I’m not in the mindset to put out decent writing. And I’ve learned that if you have nothing good to say, it’s better not to say anything at all.
Silence can be golden. And so it is for the time being.
This doesn’t mean I’ve given up on my newsletter. Far from it. This is a lifelong project with a greater purpose. I’m building a collection of profiles of people that have fulfilled impossible goals, so that my son and his generation have examples to follow.
Role models that remind them to dream.
The world can be a negative place. Some people get more pleasure from seeing others fail than seeing them succeed. Even those closest to us can try to impose their own limiting beliefs and hold us back from fulfilling our potential. I’ve seen too many people give up on their dreams far too easily and I want more for my son.
I’ve faced this in my own life. As an entrepreneur that’s still chasing his first success story, I’ve had to grapple with self-doubt and fear. I’ve spent countless nights lying awake wondering how I’m ever going to make it. Questioning whether I should just settle for a job and a steady income, to make the pain of uncertainty go away.
But then I come back to a vision of myself sitting in an armchair forty years from now, reflecting on my life. What would I regret more? Sacrificing my dreams for the sake of a paycheck or listening to my heart and risking it all for one more grand adventure? What would make for more memorable stories to share with my grandkids? What example would I want to set for my son?
Every time I doubt the path I’ve embarked on, I come back to these questions and the answer is always the same. Our legacy is built on the risks we take and dreams we chase. It’s built on staying true to ourselves and our values. It’s preserved by ignoring the pressure of those around us or society at large.
Another thing I’ve learned is that sometimes inaction is the best course of action. Doing nothing gives us space and time to reflect on what we want to do next. It’s better to take extra time to make a good decision than to make a hasty one that leads us down the wrong path.
It’s easy to think that time is not on our side or that we have no time to waste. It’s easy to create pressure and feel that we need to take action now. But this line of thinking ignores the time spent following our decision, the time spent trying to get back on the right path, or worst of all, the time we can’t get back when we realize we’ve led ourselves down the wrong rabbit hole.
The opportunity cost of making the wrong decision is significant and one that we systematically underestimate as human beings. We underestimate how quickly life unfolds. We forget that time passes in the blink of an eye.
The best way to ensure we live a life that fulfills us is to make decisions that align with what we truly want. And the best way to make those decisions is to take the time needed to reflect and identify exactly what we want. To carve out the mental space to make a decision based on desire, not fear. A decision that resonates with what we feel inside, not what we’re told from the outside.
This is where I am today. Taking the time to define my next adventure.
To some people, I’m wasting time. I’m shirking responsibility. I’m hiding from reality. But I suspect that when I look back on my life, I will be grateful that I took this time to do nothing. It’s a decision that will save me time in the future - and there can be no better payoff in life.
I would love to hear your feedback on the newsletter so far: what I can improve, what you’d like to see more (or less), anything goes. Send me an email: omar@omarfarha.com.