There's a very specific kind of melancholy attached
to the phrase someday. It's a comforting lie
that we tell ourselves, a kind of mental storage
unit where we pack away the things we genuinely
want to do, making space for the things we have
to do. Now we spend decades building careers,
raising families, paying mortgages, exist in
this state of perpetual motion convinced that
Eventually, the noise is going to stop. And in
the silence, we promise ourselves, we'll finally
pick up the paintbrush. We'll finally write that
novel. We'll finally book that one -way ticket.
And today, I want to talk about what happens
when that Sunday actually arrives. Even now,
in my mid -50s, I feel... The pressure of that
deferred dream. My day is creative. Yeah, I'm
incredibly lucky to do what I do on here on YouTube
and also what I do with my music. But even then,
I still look at the books on my shelves that
I haven't read. I think about the styles of guitar
playing I haven't had the patience to learn because
they don't immediately translate into the recording
ideas I'm working on. And I catch myself saying,
I'll do that when things calm down. But recently,
I've been having conversations with some other
people who've reached that horizon line. People
in their 50s, their 60s and their 70s who've
crushed over into retirement. I wanted to know
about their storage units. What did they unpack?
And perhaps more importantly, what did they decide
to leave in the box? And when I asked people
about the one thing they always said they'd do
when they had time, the answer was really about
grand earth -shattering achievements. Nobody
said they wanted to become a CEO or qualify the
Olympics. The answers were quieter, more intimate.
Since retiring last year, I've been fortunate.
I've done a lot. I started a music production
course at university. I started a not -for -profit
record label. I've wrote and recorded my own
album called See You on the Moon, which you can
find on Spotify, Apple Music, etc. But I still
have my own storage unit full of things to create,
and I'm worried I'm not going to get them all
done. I spoke to a man, I'm calling David. Actually,
all of my anonymised people in my videos are
called David. I hadn't really noticed that before.
He spent 40 years in finance, high stress, long
hours. For decades, he told everyone that when
he retired, he was going to restore some classic
cars. He had this vision of himself covered in
grease, rebuilding engines. And we retired two
years ago. And fair enough, he bought an old
Triumph, but it's currently sitting under a tarp
in his garage. And he said to me, Eric, the truth
is, I like the idea of being a mechanic more
than the reality of busting my knuckles every
afternoon. And instead, he starts a bacon sourdough.
He's obsessed with... hydration percentages and
starting cultures it was a complete surprise
to him and I think that's the first lesson here
the someday dream is often just a placeholder
it's a psychological safety valve we need while
we're working when the time actually arrives
the things you thought you wanted might not fit
into who you've become and that's okay but then
there are the others the ones who did pick up
everything they deferred and what led me to the
most poignant part of these conversations we
live in a culture with expertise optimization
and this 10 000 hour rule we want to see the
finished product the virtuoso performance we
rarely celebrate the clumsy, awkward beginnings.
Now imagine being 65, you've just finished a
career where you were competent, you were respected,
you knew the answers, you were the expert in
the room, and suddenly you're sitting in front
of a piano for the first time since you were
10, trying to make your left hand cooperate with
your right hand. The emotional hurdle here is
massive. It's genuinely terrifying to voluntarily
make yourself vulnerable again. To be a beginner
at an age when society expects you to be finished.
Now, another lady that I spoke to via my website,
she was a retired teacher who'd finally started
taking creative writing lessons. And she described
it, I think, perfectly. She said to me, Eric,
it felt like showing up to school naked. Now,
I've spent a lifetime building armour and to
write, I had to take it all off. My ego didn't
want to let me be bad at something. Now, that
fear of being bad stops so many of us. We think
if we can't be great at something immediately,
then it's not worth doing. And that feeling seems
to amplify as we get older. The stakes feel higher
because time feels shorter. Why waste time being
a mediocre painter when you're an excellent accountant?
But for those who push past that initial ego
bruise and fear, something great can happen,
a liberation, when you remove the need to earn
a living. When you remove the need for career
advancement or impressing your peers. What's
left is the pure act. The joy of doing something
simply because it feels good to do it. That's
sourdough baker David. He doesn't want to go
to the bakery. He just wants to eat nice bread
on a Tuesday. The writer, she's not trying to
get published in the New Yorker. She just wants
to understand her own life through words. And
I don't want to be on top of the pops. There's
a profound beauty in just trying your hand at
something you love. It's a reclamation of childhood
in a way. It's a mission to play. Now, talking
to these retirees, maybe look at my guitar in
the corner of the room. A little differently
today, it made me realise that waiting for that
perfect quiet moment is actually a trap. The
noise never really stops, it just changes frequency.
Now, if there's a dream that you're deferring,
that someday that you're keeping locked in your
mental storage unit, maybe crack open the door
just a little bit. You don't have to wait until
you're 65 to be a beginner again. Be new. Be
bad. Be a starter at something today. It might
be the most important thing you do all week.
See you on the next one.