acting on impulse

I was talking to a friend yesterday of the importance of 'acting on impulse'. Please note this is not meant as 'act impulsively', i.e. without thought - and is nothing to do with a certain body spray!!

It's about those times we have a thought, prompting or conviction that we should do something. Like write a letter of encouragement. Phone someone to see if they're all right. Follow up on something. Pursue a certain avenue. Push a certain door.

How often I have good impulses - and they are such good intentions...but sadly, nothing more. My friend told me about her old teacher - how he would say do it while you've got the enthusiasm. I can identify with this. How often do we feel profoundly moved by something but put off praying about it or responding to it? How often do we assume we will 'get round to it' at a later time? We assume the fruit will remain ripe, to use an analogy - not realising that it will, eventually, get out of date and even go off. Our enthusiasm, our passion, vanishes. The zest, the colour, the flavour of the moment disappears. And even more tragically, sometimes we don't even notice it's gone.

It sends a surge of unhappy comprehension through me to think of how many times I have made this mistake. Delaying and procrastinating. Assuming that it will happen...later. Intending, but then...forgetting. The train has left the station, and I don't even remember the importance of getting on it.

We all do it. So this is my challenge - to myself, and to any who identify with what I am talking about.

Act on impulse. Write that letter. Make that phone call. Be the encourager, the do-er, the ambassador. Don't let your passion - or compassion - have time to fade. Hold onto those things that really matter - and don't let them go.