Don't wait to live.

Years ago my sister and I were travelling in England. I know it was a long time ago because my daughter Merrilee was eleven months old at the time and she's now twenty-nine. We drove our little rented camper van into a beautiful and quaint town in the Lake District and parked. As we were on holidays, we wanted to have a look around the main part of town, check out the shops, get something for lunch and generally enjoy ourselves.

In one shop I saw a set of placemats featuring watercolours of the Lake District. I loved them. They were so pretty and so unusual. I deliberated about whether or not to buy them. "Buy them," Debra said as I put them back on the shelf. I told her that I really couldn't, they cost more than I thought I could afford. "You should buy them anyway," she insisted, "or you'll wish you had. You may not get another chance." She was right. I hadn't seen the same designs anywhere else. But I didn't buy them then and I never got another chance.

I have also never forgotten those placemats. Now, I'm not sure that they would necessarily have changed my life in a big way had I bought them, though I'm sure I would have received a lot of enjoyment from using them. However, they may have had more impact because I didn't buy them as the memory of the incident and the lesson contained in it have never been forgotten.