I’m on the phone with a friend who wants Darla and I to come to an open house for a home his company just built. We plan to do so but I finish our conversation by saying, “We’ll be there unless something dramatic happens.”

I really didn’t need to add those words. I’m the kind of person who shows up when he says he will. If I don’t show up people know something dramatic must have happened: a sick kid, a client crisis, etc.

But it got me to thinking: our lives will end up where they’re headed “unless something dramatic happens.” That is to say, serious change is almost always predicated by something dramatic and usually unforeseen. We end up out of shape and overweight when we eat poorly and don’t exercise…unless we have a heart attack or our doctor warms us of imminent health disaster. We end up taking our loved ones for granted…until someone close to us dies unexpectedly. We end up working part-time well into our retirement years unless…

How much of our lives are spent on autopilot? How often do we think about where we’re headed “unless something dramatic happens”?

Making an important decision can be just the dramatic event you need to change course. Committing to a new course of action needs to be dramatic to get off the undesired course you’re on. Going through the discomfort or pain of changing a negative behavior is dramatic but might just save your life.

Those decisions, commitments and changes are in your control. Don’t wait for the uncontrolled and often tragic dramatic happenings to occur.