Every once in a while there is a chance to change things.

This is what I've gotten from all of the lists and special TV shows and flashbacks. Every once in a while there is a chance, and every once in a while someone takes it. Not that there has to be an aligning of planets or a frightening chain of events or even just a moment of clarity. A chance is taken and things change. And that, I think, is what we've all been waiting for. All this counting down and debating and counter-pointing only serves one thing (if it ends up serving anything at all), and that is change.

As I sit here, a week before the uncertain becomes certain (one way or another), I realize that we've squandered a good chance for change.

This year could have been about something real, instead it's been about fear of the phantom. The phantom of an economy collapse that hasn't shown up yet. The phantom of a computer glitch that has yet to show its face. The phantom of the past. A past full of accomplishments and set backs, and we sit around tallying up it all and talking about it and trading it like Pokemon cards, but we haven't contributed. We haven't done a damn thing.

We're so afraid that we're going to take the wrong step that we never ever get any forward momentum. We're afraid of ourselves. We're afraid of everyone else. We're afraid of what could be, because it might or might not happen. So, in the end, nothing does actually happen.

We're stagnant. We've frightened ourselves frozen. And, because the nature of time is to keep pacing along, we think we're still going forward. We think because we invented time, we can control it. But we use it as an excuse to go nowhere. The involuntary pull is not forward momentum, rather merely a constant rhythm. We're still alive, it says, but nothing more.

And I'd feel like the great beast slouching toward Jerusalem, if the beast was already shot dead and stepped on by people fleeing the city.

So here's what I feel right now. We need to do something.

I don't care if it's one of those hokey New Year's resolution things or a solemn vow or a message cut into your arm with razor blades.

Do something.

Make a movement forward. Initiate change. Realize you're still alive--not just because you feel time scooting forward but because you, yourself, are moving in the right direction.

We can't fear the future forever. We can't live in the past. And we can't ignore the present.

So do something progressive. Something building on what has been started but mostly ignored.

If you've never voted--and even if you feel that one vote isn't worth a damn thing--register to vote and use that right. It doesn't matter if you vote for the right person--there is no right or wrong answer. There is no prize at the end of the lottery.

If you've been waiting for that right person to come along, and you still haven't seen their face, start looking for the wrong person. The right one, apparently, is the wrong answer.

If you keep meaning to get that tattoo--you know the one, it explains everything about you in a small little flesh picture--get under the needle.

If you keep meaning to quit your job, but you can't picture anything else you want to do. Quit. And something else will come along that's just as good, or bad, as the one you have.

Whatever it is that tickles your mind in the middle of the night, leaving a burning negative image in your eyes when the sun comes up and the beeping alarm pulls you away from dreams, that thing is what I'm talking about.

That thing that holds you back, but at the same time wants to push you forward, is the future.

Not some pedantic discussion about whether 2000 or 2001 is the beginning of the new millennium. Not a chat room about what the next Star Wars movie will be about. And certainly not doing the same old thing over and over and over. All of that is the stagnation.

The future is a step forward.

So get stepping.

Matt Worley never wanted to be a motivational speaker, but what the hell.