If you don't, you will get to the end of your journey and realise you haven't lived your life according to you, you've been waiting for someone else's permission to live it.
"I want to make my film, but I just don't have the time right now. I'll start writing it when I get my next acting gig..."
If you wait until you have the right job, or the right agent, or the right money, or the right house, or the right time, or the right role, or the right fame, or the whatever you need to do the thing you have been wanting to do, you will reach the end of your time on this planet having never done it.
At the end you may try to blame the lack of job, or lack of agent, or lack of money, or the lack of house, or the lack of time, or the lack of role, or the lack of fame.
But you will know where you made the mistake:
You didn't take responsibility. You were waiting for someone else to give you the nod.
"[The person who hires me to do my next acting gig will be giving me permission to start writing the film I've wanted to make]"
But as the co-founder of Pixar, Ed Cattull, puts it:
You donโt have to ask permission to take responsibility.
It's important to train ourselves to see our excuses for what they are: cages built from our fear and cowardice.
If this makes you angry, take solace in the fact that it made me angry the first time I heard someone say it. I was angry because I knew I was riddled it. Fear and cowardice dwelt deep (they still do).
For years I have hidden behind the following lines:
I'm not a writer. I'll write once I have learnt to write.
I'm not a creative person, when I feel like a creative person, I will create.
I don't have the money to make my own film.
I don't have time to [write short film, start production company, experiment with YouTube channel]......[Spends lunch break on phone]
I don't have the money right now to do anything but work.
I will wait until I have space to think, right now, I can't think about anything else apart from [project immediately in front of me]
Once I have clout in the industry, people will ask me what I want to make, I will make it then.
I will begin when the inspiration hits me.
I don't want to make my own work right now, I will do it later.
I was just scared, waiting for someone to tap me on the shoulder and say - "hey, it's going to be okay, you can do it and you should. I believe in you."
But there came a point, around a year ago, when the bottom fell out from underneath me, and I saw the truth that had eluded me up until then:
I cannot continue living my life waiting for things to happen to me.
If I do, nothing will happen to me.
For 8 years Bronnie Ware took care of patients at the end of their lives.
During the last 3 to 12 weeks of their lives she made observations about what they most regretted about their lives, she turned her findings into a book called The Top Five Regrets of the Dying.
She found the #1 most common regret of the dying was:
I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
And in 2018 a Cornell University study backed this up, with the lead researcher, Tom Gilovich, revealing why so many people (76% of the patients studied) felt this way:
โIn the short term, people regret their actions more than inactions,โ he said. โBut in the long term, the inaction regrets stick around longer.โ
...
โThe failure to be your ideal self is usually an inaction,โ said Gilovich. โItโs โI frittered away my time and never got around to teaching myself to code or play a musical instrument.โโ
...
we often assume we first need inspiration before we can strive to achieve our ideals. But a significant amount of psychological research shows thatโs not true, Gilovich said. โAs the Nike slogan says: โJust do it,โโ he said. โDonโt wait around for inspiration, just plunge in. Waiting around for inspiration is an excuse. Inspiration arises from engaging in the activity.โ
We must take responsibility for ourselves.
At the end of our lives, the only person we will have to blame for what we haven't done will be us.
We must do the thing we want to do. Now.
Before it's too late.
โ
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
โ Mary Oliver (The Summer Day)
Scriptsville Idaho
The Beeb is a whole place.
On the interweb there's a corner that contains their scripts.