The Trap of Someday

A blog by Ali Lalieu

October 2026

My beautiful eldest daughter, Cass Miller, reminds me daily that life is not a dress rehearsal. Cass turns the reality of mortality into a contagious enthusiasm for being alive.

She urges and encourages us to Wake Up. Not someday - today!

How often do we postpone really living?

When work settles down.
When the children are older.
When I have more time.
We spend so much of our lives waiting for things to be just right that we forget this simple truth: This is our life and it’s happening now.

Purpose is often spoken about as though it’s something we need to discover, a single great calling, waiting to be found.

But perhaps purpose is less about finding the perfect answer and more about paying attention to how we’re living today.

Joshua Freedman, CEO of Six Seconds, reminds us that Reconnecting with Purpose is not about what you do. It’s about who you become while you do it.

For many leaders, family and health are named as top personal values. Yet it’s easy to say that family matters. That health matters.

The more difficult questions become:

• Can I see those values in the way I’m actually living?

• Where are they in my calendar?

• Where are they in my conversations?

• Where are they in the decisions I make when nobody is watching?

• Where are they when I feel tired, under pressure, disappointed or afraid?

Values become meaningful when they move from words into behaviour.

Purpose works the same way. In some ways, it’s the antidote to ‘Someday’ as it invites us to pause, become more aware, to notice, to witness, to tune in.  

We don’t only live our purpose in the big decisions.

We live it in the ordinary Monday morning choices. The trees we notice on our daily commute. The phone call we make. The hard conversation we lean into. The person we listen to with more understanding and less judgement. The boundary we finally honour. The grievance we let go of. The apology we offer. The moment we look up and truly notice someone we love.

And perhaps the most meaningful lives are built through thousands of small, intentional moments when we choose:

• Curiosity over certainty.

• Courage over avoidance.

• Compassion over judgement.

We may not always have control over what happens around us, but we do have some choice about how we meet the day in front of us.

And that is where purpose begins.

Not someday.

Today.

So perhaps these are the questions worth carrying with you:

• What would living fully look like today, not someday?

• Who can you call today, not someday?

• What would you notice, today, not someday?

• What would you stop postponing, today, not someday?

• What matters enough to make space for, today, not someday?

• What emotion might you need to befriend, today, not someday?

• What are you willing to say no to, today, not someday?

Cheers

Ali x