waiting on you. And you can sit around, playing the what-if
game until you’re exhausted, or you can begin by saying
that one little word that changes everything: let’s.
In the Spanish play Life Is a Dream by Pedro Calderón
de la Barca, the protagonist, Segismundo, has been locked
up in a tower for most of his life and delivers a monologue
in which he describes life as nothing more than a dream. He
says, “What is life? A tale that is told; / What is life? A
frenzy extreme, / A shadow of things that seem; / And the
greatest good is but small, / That all life is a dream to all, /
And that dreams themselves are a dream.”^10
It’s a profound and poetic monologue, the most famous
in the play, but it’s also a little depressing. What
Segismundo is saying is that life itself is a fantasy and what
we think we know is an illusion. This, unfortunately, is how
many live their lives. Thinking of a calling as nothing more
than an unrealized dream, they squander their passion and
rob the world of a gift—their action. At the end of their
lives, as their story fades into eternity, they will wonder,
Was it worth it? Did I do all I had to do? Or did I play it
safe?
On our deathbeds, we will see things with the most
clarity we have ever had. Each of us will have to face the
facts of how we spent our lives, especially when we had the
opportunity to act and didn’t. What I fear more than
anything about that day is how I will have to answer for all
the times I didn’t live up to my potential, why I didn’t
embrace my calling more fully. And what will my reason