You will never be ‘ready’

Life doesn’t wait.

Time doesn’t stop. We can’t press pause. The longer we put something off, the harder it gets.

Lots of people talk, but many never do. I remember so many conversations where so many people would tell me about so many things they were planning.

These things all sound like cliches — and maybe they are — but they are true. But it’s hard to see it at the time. And it’s particularly hard to see it when you are young, because it feels like life is just always coming. There is always more road. There is always another chance. No need to rush.

Pick a city, any city

In modern America, there’s a familiar path lots of young people tend to follow. College, grad school, move to the city. It doesn’t really matter which city. You just move to the biggest, closest one. Or that’s what I did, at least.

It’s a liminal time. You’re done with school, but not really living your real life yet. What’s real life? Marriage, kids, and a house outside the city. You don’t have that. You have some crap job that’s just enough to pay the bills. Or, if you are serious, you might have a decent first-year job where you can “get your foot in the door.”

That brief period in your mid-20s feels full of possibility. But that possibility is a fleeting and deceiving thing. Lots of people talk, but many never do. I remember so many conversations where so many people would tell me about so many things they were planning.

“I’m just going to work a few years, save a bunch of money, and then I’m going to go travel.”

I heard so many iterations of this sentiment. They seemed so sincere when they talked about their plans to quit and travel, or start a business, or do what they really wanted to do. But they never did. It was all talk. It was all dreaming.

Too comfortable to fail

I am sure they meant it when they said it. I have no doubt they really wanted to quit that job and go on some adventure. But the pay was too good. Their job was too easy. Their apartment was too nice. They got in a routine — and it was a nice routine — and getting out got harder and harder the longer it went on.

It’s understandable. I don’t blame them. Getting a good job and sticking with it is a good idea if that’s what you want to do. We all live different lives, and that’s good. The world would be boring if we were all the same. But it happened so often in such similar circumstances that I couldn’t help but notice that it wasn’t just different people living different lives. There was something else.

It’s hard to quit a good job. It’s hard to take a pay cut. It’s hard to choose more work (running your own business) rather than less work (being a corporate cog). It’s hard to scale back your lifestyle once you let it creep up to intoxicating heights.

First it’s the nice apartment that you don’t really need. Then it’s the really nice car. Then it’s the constantly going out to eat. Then the expensive gym membership. Then the vacations and the superfluous junk you just like to buy whenever you feel like it. Soon enough, it really feels like you “need” all these things that you didn’t have just a few years earlier, and you can’t imagine sacrificing them. Quitting the job and traveling is off the table. Starting the business is too risky.

That’s how it happens. That’s how people let life slip away. They drag their feet just a little too long. Get a little too used to the things they don’t really need and then can’t imagine giving them up. All that talk of taking control of their life was just talk. They are now stuck. I remember it so well back in my mid-20s, but it doesn’t stop there. It’s a theme through all of life.

‘Not a good time’

You see this same thing when it comes to having kids. So many people — often, believe it or not, the same people — put it off until they are “ready.” Or that’s what they call it. They say they need to have more money, need to own a house, have to buy a bigger house, need work to quiet down. “It’s not a good time right now.”

Truthfully, they will never be ready. There will never be a good time. There is always an excuse. The longer and longer they put it off, the harder and harder it gets to pull the trigger. And then, eventually, it becomes impossible to pull the trigger. That door closes eventually. If you wait to have kids until you are ready, you are never going to have kids. That last sentence could be expanded beyond kids.

Take the leap

If you wait until you are ready to do it, you are never going to do it. That’s it. That’s the thread through all of this. The 25-year-old in the city. The professional couple who is waiting to have kids. The guy who has an idea for a business but is too afraid to take the leap.

All of us, any time we wait because we are too scared or hesitant to make it happen. Every day that we delay, the harder it gets to go do what we really want to do. We get trapped in permanent delay. Waiting for life to happen.

But life doesn’t wait. It’s always happening. Right here. Right now. It is the one thing we can only lose and never gain. If we want to do it, we’ve got to do it now. Time is always slipping away like sand in an hourglass

“If not now, when?”