Do It Now!

To change one’s life, one should start immediately. Do it flamboyantly without exception.

The truth of the matter is that you always know the right thing to do. The hard part is actually doing it.

There are two kinds of people; those who don’t do what they want to do, so they write down in a diary about what they haven’t done…
…then there are those who haven’t the time to write about it because they’re out doing it.

If you have something to do that is worthwhile doing, don’t talk about it… just do it.

Action is the antidote to despair.

Activity and sadness are incompatible. Action may not always bring happiness but there is no happiness without action.

So my dear friends, take action now before it’s too late. Remember that the saddest word in the English language is the word ‘IF’.

Please take a moment to ponder and reflect, thereafter take action. We are all on very short borrowed time in this world, so let’s not waste a single second.

Sincerely,

Joseph Bismark
Group Managing Director, QI Ltd

2 thoughts on “Do It Now!

  1. Dear Mr Bismark,

    Just wanted to point out that while ‘IF’ is a sad word, when put into a certain context, in Rudyard Kipling’s famous poem ‘IF’, it represents hope, motivation and inspiration.

    Kipling’s ‘IF’ contains mottos and maxims for life and the poem is also a blueprint for personal integrity, behaviour and self-development.

    ‘IF’ is perhaps even more relevant today than when Kipling wrote it, as an ethos and a personal philosophy. I am sure you have read it, but I’m pasting it here just in case.

    “IF
    If you can keep your head when all about you
    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
    If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
    But make allowance for their doubting too,
    If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
    Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
    If you can dream–and not make dreams your master,
    If you can think–and not make thoughts your aim;
    If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
    And treat those two impostors just the same;
    If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
    Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
    If you can make one heap of all your winnings
    And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
    And lose, and start again at your beginnings
    And never breath a word about your loss;
    If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
    To serve your turn long after they are gone,
    And so hold on when there is nothing in you
    Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"
    If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
    Or walk with kings–nor lose the common touch,
    If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
    If all men count with you, but none too much,
    If you can fill the unforgiving minute
    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
    Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
    And–which is more–you’ll be a Man, my son!”
    – Rudyard Kipling

  2. Dear Ramya,

    I agree. At the same time if we read Kipling’s writing of ‘IFs’, all the positive points are made clear on the ‘IF’ you can do it – meaning, regrets in life come only ‘IF’ we were not able to do the things we thought we should have done later on in life. Such decisions are those that we should have made but hesitated because we were afraid to take the risk.

    Thank you for giving another view on the word ‘IF’.

    The point that we should take home is that… for us not to sit back later on in life and have to say the word ‘IF’. Let us not be afraid to take risks and not have to use this word ‘IF’.

    Sincerely,

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