I’ve spent plenty of time waiting for perfection to just fall into my lap. The perfect way to ask someone out. The perfect essay. Hell, even the perfect topic for this column. Inevitably, this strategy doesn’t work.
Unfortunately, real life doesn’t come with a team of writers making sure you have that scene where the music swells and everything falls into place. Sure, those rare occurrences where everything goes right can happen, but you shouldn’t count on them.
Whatever your goals are, just get out there and work towards them. Will it always turn out exactly how you planned? Of course not, but that’s not the point. The point is that something, however imperfect, is better than nothing.
I’m not saying that life will give you a participation trophy just because you tried. Sticking to your goals, putting in the work and persevering matters so much more than waiting for luck to look your way.
Like many other people, I’ve second-guessed, third-guessed and sometimes even fourth-guessed myself because I had to be absolutely sure of a decision before I made it. Any shred of doubt, no matter how small, was poison to my determination, placing me in the Olympic finals of mental gymnastics.
Focusing so much on “the right moment” blinds you to the rest of the world happening all around you. What are you waiting for? Go out and start living.
