Stop Saving Your Life for “One Day”

Twenty-five years ago, I woke up in an apartment that I shared with my friend, Beth, in Indianapolis, Indiana.

We were college students. I usually worked at my bank job in the fraud department on Tuesdays, but I had two midterms on September 12th, so I took the day off work to study. As I prepared for my day, I had the local news on my bedroom television because Beth was still sleeping, so I didn’t want to move the noise to the living room yet.

Around 9 am, the two local news anchors interrupted whatever they were talking about to report that an airplane had flown into one of the World Trade Center towers in New York. Their information was limited, so it was unclear what had happened.

It was odd, but not odd enough to stop what I was doing.

About twenty minutes later, they completely interrupted regular programming to announce that a second plane had crashed into the second tower. They completely turned over programming to the national news broadcast, where I saw footage of two smoldering holes in both buildings.

This is not right. Something bad is happening.

I heard Beth come out of her bedroom. I came out of my room and told her, “Something bad is happening. Two planes have crashed into the World Trade Centers in New York.”

We turned on the living room television. To our horror, they announced that the planes were hijacked and America was under attack. We weren’t even sitting down. We were standing in front of the TV, speechless.

Then came the replays of the second plane crashing into the South Tower. Until that day, we had never seen anything like it. Frozen, we watched in silence, standing in front of the TV with our eyes wide open and mouths gaping open in shock.

Over the years, Beth and I grew apart.

Mostly by me moving to Chicago in 2007 and her having three kids.

But no matter what the circumstances, and even if we hadn’t been in touch all year, we always texted each other on September 11th.

We didn’t have to explain why we were texting. “Thinking about you today” carried years of meaning.

One year, she actually picked up the phone to call me that day, and our friendship rekindled. It always felt bittersweet to attribute our connection over the years to such a tragedy.

And in a weird way, September 11th was the beginning of my new relationship with time.

There are moments that split your life into a crystal clear Before and After. And for a little while afterward, you acutely understand something you normally spend most of your life glossing over:

None of us know how much time we have.

Then, we go back to work, get annoyed with bad drivers, run errands, put things off, assume we’ll call someone next week, assume we’ll take the trip next year, and assume we’ll leave the job “one day.”

“Later” is not a date on a calendar.

My dad died unexpectedly in February 2017. He was only 63 years old.

There was a Before and After.

I spent the rest of that year feeling feelings that I didn’t even know how to feel. Using the word grief doesn’t even break the surface of the emotional tornado. I also spent a lot of time spiraling about my own mortality.

For years, I had been thinking about how “One Day” I wanted to be a writer and move to Hawaii. I didn’t want to die with the regret of not having the courage to go through with either of those things.

In the intense consciousness of my mortality, I realized that life is too short not to do what you want to do, so I made the most terrifying self-inflicted decisions ever: I moved from Chicago to Hawaii by myself and eventually wrote and published Running in Slippers, a raw and vulnerable memoir about the most embarrassing mistakes of my life.

I’ve been thinking about time again lately with the passing of my friend, Aaron Char.

Apparently, life keeps reminding us of the shit we already know.

Aaron was an artist and beachboy in Waikiki. Our meeting wasn’t random.

I had been storing my surfboard in the City & County of Honolulu owned surf lockers, but an arsonist reduced hundreds of surfboards and metal racks to a pile of ashes in late 2021.

So, I started renting at the privately owned surfboard lockers just a few blocks down. Between my walk from my surfboard locker to the beach to launch into the ocean, I would pass Waikiki Beach Services at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel where Aaron worked.

At first, Aaron was simply a passing face, but eventually he became familiar and we started talking. And for a while, he was one of the few people who was friendly and made me feel welcome in the surf/beach community.

After he read my book, Running in Slippers, he created a piece of art of me surfing. I can’t even begin to explain how profound this moment was. Aaron had read about some of the most painful and embarrassing moments of my life. He knew the parts of my story I spent years wishing I could erase.

And instead of seeing me as broken or damaged, he made art out of me doing something I loved. He chose to see the beauty in my humanness.

To this day, it’s hanging in my kitchen.

Unfortunately, about a year ago, Aaron was diagnosed with cancer. He fought hard and strong but took a turn for the worse at the end of July and didn’t make it.

That same damn Before and After split happened, and I’ve had a strange version of survivor’s guilt because I have been enjoying the ocean, and goddamn it, Aaron loved the ocean. Why isn’t he still here to have that same experience?

Aaron drew me surfing. And now that art piece remains in a world where he doesn’t.

We all have an expiration date.

I didn’t understand this concept until after my total emotional breakdown in October 2020. When I was released from the hospital, I told my friend Kahea that I couldn’t believe I didn’t die.

“It’s not your time,” she responded.

In that moment, I decided to live my life a different way because there is no fucking way in hell that I am going to waste my time doing shit that makes me miserable.

Life is too short and too fragile to postpone your entire life for “One Day.”

What are you waiting for?

Are you:

Waiting until everyone approves?

Waiting until you’re confident?

Waiting until it’s safe?

Waiting until your manager notices?

Waiting until you have enough money?

Waiting until you’re less scared?

Waiting until some imaginary future version of yourself finally reassures you that everything is going to be okay?

Waiting until Mom understands? (Spoiler alert: she never will. And that’s okay.)

We live as though waiting is free. Waiting costs time.

This is why I care so much about helping women stop abandoning themselves. Because every year spent living according to someone else’s expectations is a year of your actual life, and none of us knows how many of those we get.

So quit your job, book the flight, and YOLO. Just kidding. (Kind of….)

But living life as if there is no tomorrow isn’t only about enormous acts of courage. It’s about saying hello to the person everyone else ignores, telling someone you like their weird glasses, making your friend a painting, calling a friend that’s your version of Beth, saying no when you mean no, asking for what you want because damn it you deserve it, relaxing in nature because you deserve some peace in this life, and telling someone you love them while they are still around to hear it.

Twenty-five years after that September 11th morning, Beth is still my friend.

In my kitchen is a painting Aaron made of me doing something I once didn’t know how to do. Neither of those things seemed monumental when they began.

We don’t know which Tuesday morning will divide our lives into Before and After, we don’t know which kindness someone will remember after we’re gone, and we don’t know how much “later” any of us actually has.

We live as though there will always be more time.

Let’s start living in the raw After phase, where we are intensely aware of just how fragile this life is and refuse to waste another year, month, or fucking Tuesday living for things that don’t light our souls on fire.

What is one thing you’ve been saving for “One Day”?

Insight Is Cute. Now Act.

Because “One Day” is not a plan.

Think about the thing you keep telling yourself you’ll do “One Day.”

When you have more money, when work calms down, when you feel more confident, when the kids are older, when you know it’s going to work, when everyone else finally understands, taking the trip you’ve been talking about for five years, applying for the job you secretly want every time you open LinkedIn, telling someone you love them, finally saying no to something you fucking hate doing, taking the pottery class, learning to surf, writing the book, asking for the raise, or calling the friend you keep meaning to call.

Pick one. Then ask yourself: “What am I actually waiting for?”

Not the practical answer. The answer underneath it.

Are you waiting for certainty?

Someone else’s approval?

More confidence?

A guarantee that you won’t regret it?

Now ask: “What is one thing I can do THIS WEEK that makes ‘One Day’ a little less imaginary?”

You don’t have to quit your job tomorrow, sell everything you own, and move to Hawaii. I already tried that one for us, haha.

Book the consultation, send the text, research the flight, sign up for the class, block an hour to write, ask the question, say the thing, make the reservation, and take one tiny piece of your life out of the hands of “One Day” and put it on the fucking calendar.

Start living as though you have an unlimited supply of time because “Later” is not a date on the calendar.

Okay, But Now What?

This is one of those weeks where transitioning from a deeply personal story into talking about my work feels a little weird.

So I’m not going to manufacture some clever segue. I’ll just tell you the truth.

This is why I do this work.

Because I know what it feels like to wake up years later and realize how much of your life you spent waiting for approval, waiting until you feel ready, waiting for someone else to change, waiting for some future version of you to finally feel brave enough to choose the life you actually want.

And I don’t want that for you.

The Overflow Society is the 12-week room I created for five women who are ready to stop waiting and start changing the stories that have been making their decisions for them.

The stories that tell you to be grateful instead of asking for more, keep everyone else comfortable instead of telling the truth, prove your worth instead of knowing it, keep postponing what you want until you finally feel safe enough, confident enough, deserving enough, or ready enough to have it.

It’s about making sure the life you’re living today actually belongs to you.

Right now, my email people have first dibs.

Applications for the founding five are open exclusively to them through September 18. If all five spots are filled before then, that’s it. If they’re not, I’ll open the remaining spots to the public.

So if you’re reading this thinking, Shit. I think I want to be one of those five women, join my email list below and I’ll send you the details.

Get on the list

P.S. What do cocaine, sound baths, and marathons have in common?

In this week’s video, I’m talking about the sneaky ways therapy, self-help books, affirmations, vision boards, nervous system work, spirituality, and even “healthy” habits can make us feel like we’re changing without actually changing how we live.

Because you can have insight out the a$$ and still say yes when you mean no, obsess way too much over someone else’s opinion, or be too afraid to ask for what you want.

👉 Watch: You’ve Tried Therapy, Self-Help & Affirmations. Why Are You Still Doing the Same Sh*t?

With Love & Fire,

Angie

https://www.innerglowbyangie.com/

I help you rewrite the childhood stories that are keeping Adult You quiet, overworked, and underpaid, so you can say what you fu*king mean, know your worth, and make more money.

Because you deserve to feel excited about your own life.

Through my signature GLOW Method, I combine money story rewriting, identity work, practical money strategy, and real-time action to help women stop playing small, use their voice with confidence, and become the kind of woman who naturally attracts more money, opportunities, visibility, and fulfillment.

I’m the author of Running in Slippers, a raw and vulnerable memoir about my journey from self-loathing and a suicide attempt to self-love and thriving. Life kicked me in the a$$, and, in hindsight, I needed it to.