Look, for the first two decades of my life I really didn’t have a strategy or a plan. Perhaps I had a vision for being successful, but no mission to accomplish the vision.
That is to say, I had a desired destination, with no roadmap to take me to the destination.
Most of my life happened organically, or passively. I was suffering chronically from a little disease called osmosis.
Osmosis technically isn’t a disease. Except it is. It’s a tremendously dangerous illness. It’s a slippery slope and it’s a gateway disease. A potentially terminal illness that leads to so many other infirmities.
Webster defines osmosis the process of gradual or unconscious assimilation of ideas, knowledge, etc.
Did you get that? Unconscious assimilation… That sounds terrifying to me.
Look around you, people suffering from osmosis are everywhere! Osmosis comes in the form of passivity. Or, in society today, people love to talk about how things have happened organically. People with osmosis often wake up one morning and sadly ask themselves “how did I get here?” Here, meaning their devastating circumstances they call life.
I’ll tell you how they got there. They did so gradually. Over time. Unconsciously. It wasn’t a one day process.
Many studies have found that when people look back on their lives, they regret inaction more than action. In other words, people feel pain about what they didn’t do, more so than what they did do.
When you suffer from osmosis, you generally suffer from inaction. You usually have an insatiable desire to be, and minimal motivation to do.
So militate against osmosis today. Don’t let it be a gateway disease that leads to regret.
Do proactively. Do intentionally. Do purposefully. Form habits. Showcase discipline.
10 years from now when you look back, you’ll be glad you did.
-CK