There is no tomorrow

Now is a precious, a critical commodity - by Nick van der Leek



Any moment, of course, could be your last. But each moment, also, could be your first. The first moments of truly living your life. I'm not the only one who has been reflecting on these though...

ALEC HOGG: The message - if there is one - that you'd like to leave with people who have finished reading your book - when they pick up your book they're going to be enthralled - there is no question about that. But when they've finished it, what would you like them when they reflect thereafter to think of?

ALAN KNOTT-CRAIG: It's really easy to forget what life is all about. It's really easy to become bigger than you really are. It's really easy to become not real. It's really easy to become really arrogant and it's very easy to forget that the things that really matter in life are the really simple things. Good health - you can only appreciate good health when you don't have it. You can only appreciate life if you don't have it and you can only appreciate really making a difference to the world if you've made a difference to the world and the rest is nothing. Making money is making money. I've never had money so I don't know what it feels like to make money, but I'm sure there are better feelings in the world and it's very easy to start chasing this money dream to the exclusion of the things that will give your life a much greater fullness and meaning. So, if people take this book - number one if youngsters can see that ordinary, not particularly clever folk can achieve extraordinary things, that's good. If people can see that hard work is what it takes, and patience is what it takes - that's good. If people can see that getting to the top of the corporate ladder is just another ladder, it's actually nothing.

Read the full inspiring interview.

You can take exerpts out of books, or interviews, or movies to remind you of what you should know anyway, and that is - that real life is happening NOW.

In Rocky III Rocky is the world champion, on top of his game; he then suffers a humiliating defeat, his couch dies, and he suffers a debilitating lack of self belief.

[Adrian, deeply concerned, walks towards Rocky on the beach]
Adrian: Can I talk to you? I wanna ask you something important, and I want you to tell me the truth.
Rocky Balboa: What?
Adrian: Why'd you come here?
Rocky Balboa: I just don't want it no more.
Adrian: If it's over because you want it to be over, I'm glad.
Rocky Balboa: I do.
Adrian: It's just... you never quit anything since I known you.
Rocky Balboa: I don't know what you want me to say. I mean, what happened? How did everything that was so good get so bad?
Adrian: What's so bad? Tell me, what?
Rocky Balboa: I wrecked everything by not thinking for myself. I mean, why couldn't Mickey tell me where I really at right from the start? He didn't have to carry me and lie to me and make me think I was better than I really was when I wasn't.

It's not quoted here but later on in the scene Rocky admits that what is really wrong is he is afraid. He thinks it is a failure in himself, but Adrian shows him that he is a human being, and being afraid is fine, hiding away from fear isn't.
This is the turning point for him, where he accepts his fear, but also accepts what he has to do in order to be able to believe in himself again. If you don't believe in yourself, you're a bullshitter, and there's no truth in your life.

[During Rocky's training with Apollo, he's in an another world, haunted by the first Balboa-Lang fight; Apollo lands some practice hooks]
Apollo Creed: He's hooking. He's hooking. He's hooking! Damn, Rock, Come on! What's the matter with you?
Rocky Balboa: Tomorrow. Let's do it tomorrow.
Apollo Creed: [Screaming] There is no tomorrow! THERE IS NO TOMORROW! THERE IS NO TOMORROW!

I remember, going into my 3rd Ironman, I was afraid. Afraid that I wasn't strong enough, fit enough etc. This was based on being sick in the weeks before so it was to some extent justified. Even so, the most important thing was believing in myself. I remember the night before the race I watched a very special movie, MILLION DOLLAR BABY:

Father Horvak: What's confusing you this week?
Frankie Dunn: Oh, it's the same old "one God-three God" thing.
Father Horvak: Frankie, most people figure out by kindergarten it's about faith.
Frankie Dunn: Is it sort of like Snap Crackle and Pop, all rolled into one big box?
Father Horvak: You're standing outside my church, comparing God to Rice Krispies?

Faith - in God, in yourself - is entirely up to you, and down to you.

Eddie Scrap-Iron Dupris: The body knows what fighters don't: how to protect itself. A neck can only twist so far. Twist it just a hair more and the body says, "Hey, I'll take it from here because you obviously don't know what you're doing... Lie down now, rest, and we'll talk about this when you regain your senses." It's called the knockout mechanism

Listen to your body. When you're tired, or irritated, or sore, or restless.

Frankie Dunn: What you learn tonight?
Maggie Fitzgerald: Always protect myself.
Frankie Dunn: What's the rule?
Maggie Fitzgerald: Always protect myself.

That's as good advice as you're going to get. You know what you need to do to protect yourself. Listen to that, but also listen to that same voice when it asks you to go out there and throw a knockout punch.

Eddie Scrap-Iron Dupris: To make a fighter you gotta strip them down to bare wood: you can't just tell 'em to forget everything you know if you gotta make 'em forget even their bones... make 'em so tired they only listen to you, only hear your voice, only do what you say and nothing else... show 'em how to keep their balance and take it away from the other guy... how to generate momentum off their right toe and how to flex your knees when you fire a jab... how to fight backin' up so that the other guy doesn't want to come after you. Then you gotta show 'em all over again. Over and over and over... till they think they're born that way.

You don't live in a chair, you live on your feet. But it's when we are injured that we must always prepare again to live. I guess that's why I've stretched a tendon in my leg. It's a reminder that I need to be careful on this next venture into the world. Be careful, because any moment could be your last, but not so careful that you don't get to go out and live those moments.