Most people spend their entire lives on a fantasy island called 'Someday I'll.'
Interpretation
People often delay their dreams and aspirations, waiting for a perfect time that never arrives.
In this quote, Denis Waitley highlights the tendency of individuals to procrastinate, hoping for a future moment to pursue their goals and wishes. This 'fantasy island' symbolizes a state of inaction, where people convince themselves that they will take action 'someday' instead of making concrete steps toward their aspirations in the present. It serves as a reminder that waiting for ideal circumstances can lead to missed opportunities.
In practice
In a motivational speech about taking initiative, you could use this quote to emphasize the importance of acting on dreams.
Procrastination is the fear of success. People procrastinate because they are afraid of the success that they know will result if they move ahead now. Because success is heavy, carries a responsibility with it, it is much easier to procrastinate and live on the "someday I'll" philosophy.
Winners have the ability to step back from the canvas of their lives like an artist gaining perspective. They make their lives a work of art - an individual masterpiece.
Losers live in the past. Winners learn from the past and enjoy working in the present toward the future.
The easiest thing to do in the world is to neglect the important and give in to the urgent.
You are an uncut gemstone of priceless value. Cut and polish your potential with knowledge, skills and service and you will be in great demand throughout your life.
Expect the best; convert problems into opportunities; be dissatisfied with the status quo; focus on where you want to go, instead of where you're coming from; and most importantly, decide to be happy, knowing it's an attitude, a habit gained from daily practice, and not a result or payoff.
I wanted, I think, to acknowledge Luck: the chance of it, the benevolence of it in my life, and the brutality of it in the lives of others; made especially savage for children because they may not be allowed the good fortune of a lifetime to correct it.
Whether we're prepared or not, life has a habit of thrusting situations upon us.
I'm terrified of the thought of time passing (or whatever is meant by that phrase) whether I 'do' anything or not. In a way I may believe, deep down, that doing nothing acts as a brake on 'time's - it doesn't of course. It merely adds the torment of having done nothing, when the time comes when it really doesn't matter if you've done anything or not.
At sixteen, Sabina took moon baths, first of all, because everyone else took sun baths, and second, she admitted, because she had been told it was dangerous.
All the things that were read to me by my father were stories about things becoming all right.
My life, which seems so simple and monotonous, is really a complicated affair of cafés where they like me and cafés where they don't, streets that are friendly, streets that aren't, rooms where I might be happy, rooms where I shall never be, looking-glasses I look nice in, looking-glasses I don't, dresses that will be lucky, dresses that won't, and so on.
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