Do you find yourself not doing the things you love because you tell yourself you can’t afford it or that you have no one to go with? I say put it on your calendar, spend the money, go alone, and just do it!

I have recently been thinking about the things we don’t do, that we love to do. I know people, for instance, who really enjoy the ballet, and who have ballet companies in or near their city, and yet don’t go to the ballet. Why not? “It’s too expensive.” “I don’t have anyone to go with me.” “I don’t have the time.” “I never think of it.”

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=EqutnMKB49s[/youtube]

I say put it on your calendar, spend the money, go alone, give up doing something you don’t enjoy.

I have a friend who truly loves live music. She took her daughter to three small concerts recently. All three featured bands she and her daughter enjoy. In fact, one concert was by my friend’s absolutely favorite group in the world, but she almost didn’t go.

Why not? It was 30 miles away, the tickets cost $25, she and her daughter already had tickets and plans for two other concerts within two weeks prior to this one.

In the end my friend and her daughter went to the concert. My friend had the best time, at a concert, that she has ever had, got to meet the group and say hello, and got their autographs. For the whole drive home she kept saying, “That was the most awesome time I’ve ever had!” Her daughter did not have quite such a euphoric experience, but she, too, enjoyed the concert.

Fifty bucks and a half-hour drive to one of the best, most enjoyable experiences in her life, the chance to meet four women she’s admired for years and tell them how much she loves their music, and an evening with her daughter, who is growing up very fast, at nine, and sometimes doesn’t have time for her mom anymore.

Think what my friend would have missed! Think what her daughter would have missed. Sure, if you really don’t have the fifty bucks, if you really can’t drive the thirty miles, if you really do have to work, if you really didn’t know about the concert, all of those are good reasons for not going.

But when you can go, when you want to go, when you know you’ll have a good time, and you still can’t make up your mind to go.

That baffles me, because we all do it. It’s like we think we do not have the right, somehow, to do things we want to do, to have an incredibly pleasurable time and just enjoy ourselves.

I can hear some of our mothers right now, with “Who do you think you are?” They didn’t mean to hurt us, but in some way, we still hang onto, “Who do I think I am?”

The truth, my friend admits, is this: If her daughter had chosen that concert as the one she most wanted to go to, there would have been no question about whether they would go. But this was a concert her daughter only “kind of” wanted to go to. It was Mom’s concert, really, and she didn’t think she should.

In the end, she was glad she did. And so am I.

How can you do more of the things you really love and want to do?

• First, give some thought to what you love doing
  Second, find out what opportunities exist for you to do those things
  Do one thing this week that you love and haven’t done in a while