“Change your life today. Don’t gamble on the future, act now, without delay.” — Simone de Beauvoir

We ought to act with more urgency in our days. Ought to’s aren’t the same as got to’s though, are they? We know we ought to work out more, eat and drink less empty calories, read more, make the call we’ve been meaning to make and do that other thing that’s been nagging at us for some time now. What did we actually get to yesterday? That’s the stuff of consequence that moved the chains in our march through time. Got to’s are palpable because we feel the change that comes with them.

There are few things more fulfilling than a solid day in which we do the things we’d promised ourselves that we’d do. It sets the table for a bolder tomorrow, clears the deck of yesterday’s commitments and confirms for us that we got to do the things we knew we ought to do. Excuses fall by the wayside as accomplishments stack up behind us.

We know that there’s always another ought to rising up to meet us. That’s life. But that next ought to is easier to face when we’ve gotten to the things that came up before. Each lifts us to a higher place; a staircase of accomplishments rising to a higher identity. The view is distinctly better the higher we climb. Certainly better than down there treading water under the weight of all those ought to’s.

The thing is, we read an inspiring quote like Beauvoir’s and feel the lift of her words. Do we act on it in the moment? Changing our lives seems pretty big when we think about it, but really it’s just the next thing we’ve got to do completed, and the one after that. So by all means, we must act now, and leave today’s ought to’s in the past where they belong.