About two weeks ago, I needed an intervention.

No, not the kind you see on reality shows where an alcoholic or drug user is confronted and hauled into rehab.

I mean an intervention to get me to do what I am supposed to be doing. Where Mother Nature or God or the Fates or someone to come in and say, “Hey, you’re supposed to be an amazing [insert cool thing here]. You keep saying that’s what you are going to do when [insert life event here]. What’s up with that? Why aren’t we doing anything to get it going?”

With three kids, a husband , a home to run and a business to nurture, I spend a lot of my time doing.

I get up and immediately begin doing. There’s a never ending list of doing required to make even the most insignificant activity happen.

If one of the links in the chain doesn’t happen, the whole thing breaks down. There are no socks. There is no jam for toast. The dog doesn’t get walked. People get grumpy. We are late for stuff.

Things deteriorate quickly.

But what if you are supposed to be [insert cool thing here] and you’re not working on that at all?

What if, in all the doing of the day, your [insert cool thing here] gets lost?

What if it gets pushed to the end of the list repeatedly because it’s also part of the hard or the that’s-too-big or the I-don’t-know-how-to-get-started?

Or what if it keeps getting pushed aside because you are, maybe deep down inside, just a little bit afraid of what might happen if you did do something?

I don’t really have any answers right now. I can just tell you how I’m starting to tackle this. Some things are easy, and can go on autopilot. But some are hard, and require introspection and commitment. They might require me to take a long look at who I think I am meant to be and then figure out what has brought me to this point — rather than where I want to be.

It’s like a lot of career hats we try on when we are young — the ones we sometimes feel inexplicably drawn to. The comedian. The teacher. The artist.

And then there’s the person in our life who says something like, “That’s a terrific idea, dear, but how will you make m-o-n-e-y?”

Next thing you know, we’re signed up for freshman biology and declaring a pre-med major. Or slogging through grad school. Or a bureaucrat with an incredibly complex benefits package and a job that drains every ounce of self out of us.

Hmm. That last one sounds vaguely familiar.

The question becomes this:  why am I waiting to be creative, like I need a special outlet that only exists at a specified point in my life? When will I begin to add fuel to the fire of me?

I’ve seen the downside of that kind of waiting so many times — with my mom, who finally retired only to succumb to health issues in what seemed like a matter of months. My dad, who then couldn’t cope and spent his remaining years in a fog. With friends who were so gifted and full of dreams, but who were taken from this earth long before anyone expected.

I know it is a lot. With all the doing there seems to be no time to do for ourselves and for our dreams. But I, for one, decided to get the fire going.