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Children, hell, people in general, don't need more excuses as to why they're not doing something that they'd rather be doing. A close friend of mine recently relocated to London, leaving a stable job in New York City. For the entirety of her pending departure, she heard a series of "Oh, I wish I had the courage to do that," and "Wow, you're so brave" 's from the Peanut Gallery consisting of her associates and family members.

When I left Atlanta for New York, I also heard similar caws from my friends, later echoed by refrains of assurances that staying in Atlanta would allow them to save more money and get their lives together, listing a plethora of activities and business ventures that they planned to undertake in the foreseeable future. Fast forward almost half a decade. My friends, mere acquaintances at this point, are still in the same places I left them, like dusty books on an abandoned shelf, now with yellowed pages. I always know where to find them when I visit because they never seem to leave their comfortable little spots, many of those spots being the couch.

I can argue that some people are happy doing the same things as they've always done. In those cases, I respect them for not even spouting the "I'm going to…" bullshit. They say straight up, point blank, where they are is the place they'd rather be. My issue is with people who loudly proclaim that they want to change their lives, fulfill a dream, live in another place, or start a business, and never make a serious effort to attempt the stated endeavor. If they do make a mild attempt and see that it's not as easy as they imagined, they go right back to their spot on the couch, curl up, and wait to die a spiritual, if not physical, death.Besides giving me an undeserved 3-D headache, the Pixar film "Up" released last year, did nothing for me but perpetuate this defeatist thought process, this time in the minds of the fructose corn syrup addicted monsters known affectionately as children. Briefly stated, the husband and wife in the film, once wide-eyed children with dreams of going to South America to become "explorers" never got around to doing so because of circumstances in life…or so the film implied. The camera showed montages of their cookie jar of savings constantly being smashed open and raided repeatedly over the years as unexpected expenses arised. Somehow, after two, possibly three score years of marriage, the wife was lost to cancer, and the husband, in a very roundabout and literally animated way, got to live out their dream.

News flash. They were bullshitting.

How is it that two people, with their heart set on a goal, could not achieve this relatively small, supposedly all-consuming dream? They'd even planned to have a child (watch the movie for that sad non-event explained in detail). If they were so poor, with what money had they planned to use to raise a child? I'll tell you what their problem was, and what the problem is with people like them. They, like most humans, did what they really wanted to do.

They really wanted to be to be married. They really wanted to be parents. They did not really want to go to South America to become explorers. It's the same as people who are supposedly broke, but can somehow afford to go out on weekends, painting the town red with their secured credit cards. They're choosing to spend their money on what they really want to spend money on. They do not want to pay you back the money they owe you, nor do they care to dig themselves out of debt. My associates back home? They really want to curl up in that permanent fetal impression on their pleather couches. They do not want to learn new skills or partake in the list of endeavors they re-list from memory like clockwork every single year that I visit them.

Unexpected circumstances arise in the lives of every single human being on this planet. However, you can usually tell when a person is genuinely trying to advance themselves but is having a hard time due to setbacks. However, most people make choices (and, remember, having children also counts as a choice) that place their current state of affairs, or lack thereof, in a higher category over their supposed goals. In life, as in love, actions are more important than words.

The characters in "Up," and the characters in life that you'll meet along the way, all have the opportunity to at least try to do what they say they want to do. Some many never reach those goals, but most of them are living out their real dreams right there in their dead end jobs, or in a pleasant slumber on the sofa.