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STEVEN IVORY: 'It's Too Late' is a Carole King Song
This is for anyone with a goal or destination who feels that, for whatever reason, time is running out.
Bulletin: You have plenty of time.
When there is nothing else, there is time. And air.
When you are alone, you've got time. When you don't have a dime your pocket, you are wealthy in time. When you don't have a partner, you have time.
It is only when you waste time that it appears to be slipping away.
To be sure, many things are time sensitive. Having babies. Battling an illness. Plenty needs to be tended to at a certain moment of existence.
However, there is the brooding, popular notion that if you haven't hog-tied your dream by a certain moment or age in your life, that all is lost. It's THAT attitude that truly is time sensitive, and you must change this way of thinking--quick. When you do, you will realize that it is never too late.
Too late? To do what? To get what you want? To change your mind? To follow an old passion or nurture new ones? Who said it was too late? Who made that decision for you? It is never too late to positively alter your life.
Unlike other parts of the world, we live in a culture where maturity is seldom looked upon with honor and reverence. In these fast-food times, you have 30 year-olds lying about their age, claiming themselves younger. What the #@$%&! did you know in your teens? In your twenties?
With age comes invaluable life experience and, if you pay attention and take notes along the way, insight and know-how. Don't let popular culture--TV, fashion, music, etc.--tell you that if you're in your 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s and beyond, that it is too late to undertake your joy in life. It doesn't always matter how you begin--when you start. What is important is how you end.
We should all be brave enough to end as valiantly as Gordon Parks, who did his thing practically until the day he died recently, at 93.
The first black man to direct a motion picture for a major studio ("The Learning Tree," for Warner Brothers in 1969, followed in 1971 by Shaft," for MGM), Parks will be forever hailed as a largely self-taught renaissance man who, on a major level, artfully expressed himself as a photographer, writer, film maker and composer. Not long before his death, Parks had a gallery showing of his paintings. I'm told the man didn't even get serious about the craft until he was 60.
It is never too late. However, when you do nothing to honor your desires, reaching your goal will always seem hopeless. Change begins with intention, but intention is fruitless without action.
Moving forward could be as simple as starting and sticking to an exercise regimen. Or taking the action of being honest with someone about a situation. Or doing laundry: There is something distinctly empowering about the pursuit of happiness while in clean underwear. When you know you're giving your life all that you can, you can sleep at night. On clean sheets.
Likewise, it is never too late find someone to love. That search is infinitely more fulfilling when you know what you want. Thus, I'd say the first person you need to find is you. And then let love do the rest. Love, by the way, is never late.
Steven Ivory's book, FOOL IN LOVE (Touchstone/Simon & Schuster) is in stores now or at Amazon.com (www.Amazon.com) Respond to him via STEVRIVORY@AOL.COM or MYfeedback@eurweb.com
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