“right time” is a cop out

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the idea of doing things at the “right time”. I think, had I continued to wait around for the correct time to try and start writing seriously, I would have been waiting until I was falling apart in a wheelchair somewhere. Or, it would be twenty years down the road and I would have dedicated my life to some other career, miserable, wishing I had just taken the chance I wanted to when I was younger. In fact, there is a significant part of me now that wishes I had listened to my younger instincts and just done what I wanted instead of acquiescing to what the people in my life anticipated. 

The idea of waiting around to accomplish things at the right time in your life feels suffocating and always has. I have almost mastered the act of wasting time to be sure, but waiting for the exact right moment to fall into my lap has always been a source of stress. I know that religious types and the astrology girlies will say that there is a perfect time for everything, that there is an actual right or good time for things to happen in your life. 

There have been so many times in the last ten years that I have heard that there is a right time for everything and that I need to just wait for it to come around. That there is a sweet spot in every timeline that will magically present itself and waltz into your life. I have waited, not incredibly patiently, but I have waited. I have kept a weathered eye on the horizon for the right moment, the right time, the right sacrifice to make in order to achieve the goals that I want to achieve. The inherent problem with this has been that the horizon line seems to stay far away no matter where I move. I went east, and the line stayed just as far in the distance as it always had. The right moment simply does not exist without a chase, without a passion, without the love necessary to create it. 

I think that this waiting, the expectation that there IS  a right time in your life, is a coward’s way to live. There has to be a catalyst. The only way that there can be a right time in your life is if you are taking action. In order for the right time to present itself, I truly believe that you have to have put something into motion. You have to take the first step, and often I think that we never really know what that first step is. It’s why things seem to just magically appear in our lives, because we unknowingly started to put in the work whether it’s just thinking about it, or we actually take some actionable steps. 

So just fucking do the thing. Commit to yourself and surrender to the process.