I have learned when I watch life from the sidelines, I am walking through the day without emotion, passion, or urgency. Wake up, go to work, mix in a cup of coffee, go home, eat a bite, watch the 10:00 news, go to bed, wake up the next day and do it all over again. Where is the “life” in that?

There is a line in one of my favorite movies, Shawshank Redemption, where the lead character makes a comment that he only had two choices left in his life, “Get busy living, or get busy dying.” He chose to get busy living.

I will never forget when I was about 9 years old my dad took me to Galveston Island for a weekend vacation. I was excited to get in the water, so I hurriedly got down to my trunks and ran into the Gulf. Over my shoulder I heard my dad yell, “Watch the undertow!”

I waved acknowledgement and dove in. After about 10 minutes of jumping through waves, I turned to look for our site on the beach and it was nowhere to be found. I thought my dad had left me for the sharks to feed on!

Without even realizing it, the undertow dragged me down the beach almost a half mile from where I originally jumped in.

I was scared because I did not know where I was or how I got there. Nothing looked familiar to me, I was lost.

That is what watching life from the sidelines will do to you. Life has a powerful undertow that can drag you far away from the person you want to become and without realizing it, you have drifted far away from your goals and dreams.

You can’t see it, feel it, or hear it, but the undertow is there, quietly pulling you away from what is most important to you in life.

You look up one day and discover that you are miles away from where you really wanted to be in life. You begin to panic a bit and think “how did I get so far away from the things I wanted to do and the person I wanted to become?

I know how that feels because I have been there, and I fight against the undertow every single day. I appears to me the older I get, the stronger the undertow becomes and the tougher it is to fight.

I am learning that I need to take steps daily, sometimes just baby steps, to fight against the undertow of life. I try to do that by recognizing its power, and never stop trying to be the person I could be. Only God knows who you could be, so start there.

I love this analogy by the great motivational speaker Les Brown about living life without regret and with purpose.

“Imagine if you will, lying on your deathbed and standing around your bed are the ghosts of the ideas, dreams, and talents given to you by life. For whatever reason, you never acted on those ideas, you never pursued that dream, you never used those talents, we never saw your leadership, you never used your voice, you never wrote that book. And there they are, standing around your bed looking at you with large, angry eyes saying ‘we came to you, and only you could have given us life! Now we must die with you forever.’ The question is – if you die today, what ideas, what dreams, what abilities, what talents, what gifts, would die with you?”

Bring those ghosts to life, you can see them even though others may not. Don’t be haunted on your deathbed because you were too scared to be the person you know you really are. You can do it; it is never too late, and your goals and dreams only have to make sense to you.

I want to encourage you to take time over the next few weeks to re-establish your focus in life. We are all working towards something, and it is healthy to take a deep breath on occasion, throw cold water on our face, and remember why we are doing what we are doing, and where we want to be in 5, 10, 15 years.

Oh, and don’t forget what my dad told me, “Watch the undertow!”

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Todd Howey is a columnist for BrownwoodNews.com whose articles will appear on Fridays.