I recently revisited the Willie Nelson song, “You Were Always on my Mind.”  I’ve always thought it a beautiful song.  It’s sweet.   It’s romantic.   It’s full of heartfelt longing and regret, “Little things I should have said and done I just never took the time.”  But when I heard it the other day it dawned on me how thoroughly upsidedown and backwards The Willie’s sentiments in the song actually are. 

I mean why in the world would you want a relationship with anything you love to be always on your mind when it could be created through your actions? 

This is a simple question to answer from afar but a much more difficult one to actualize the closer it comes to homebase.  Life is intimidating, even on our best days, and that fact certainly factors into why so many of us pull a Willie.  That is, too often we put the relationship with ourselves and our larger goals and dreams on the backburner for practically anything else vying for our immediate attention.  For years, I settled for picking the low hanging fruit, because, to reach the high hanging stuff that I truly wanted to taste seemed somewhat impossible and, frankly, a scary threat to the false security of my comfort zone.  But not participating in the life I wanted left me unfulfilled.  I discovered, to my chagrin, that in the absence of action, the constant thought of what I truly wanted in life only served to hobble my mind, body, and spirit.  I’ve discovered through much trial and even more error that I find the most satisfaction when I approach my life as a participation sport.  


John A. Shedd once said,  “A ship in the harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.”  Likewise, a dream, a good intention, even a small idea to make your own day a wee bit brighter can seem safer in the harbor of your mind, than on the far more uncertain and sometimes turbulent seas of daily action.  But our thoughts just aren’t meant to stay “always on our minds”.

You have a choice:

Do you want to sit high atop the bleachers thinking about the people you want to love, the good you want to do, the dreams you want to create?

Or do you want to transform your thoughts into manageable actions that give you a better shot at loving those people, doing that good and experiencing those dreams?

Yes the choice is challenging, but at least to my way of thinking all the cheese slathered nachos, carmel corn and bleacher dogs in the world could never satisfy the yearning of our mind, heart, and soul to be out on the field, playing the game for ourselves.

That’s why I’m doing my imperfect best to write this newsletter instead of just dreaming of writing it.  I learned that from a green tub.  But that’s a story for next time...