Friday, October 18, 2013

On making it happen. Now.

"Don’t wait. The time will never be just right."
Napoleon Hill
I often laugh at the prospect of waiting for everything to align before stepping off into the void. The world is such a random place that nothing will ever perfectly align, anyway. And if you choose to wait, you'll be left standing in the same place forever while life simply passes you by.

In fact, if I look at everything I've ever done in life, I was laughably unprepared for it before I dove in. Getting married? Yup. Having kids? Well, my wife was ready, but I'm still figuring it out. Doing crazy things as a journalist, like yakking for a while without a script or interviewing people I have no business interviewing? Same thing.

Today I rode my bike for the first time in months. It had been sitting in the living room for a while, taunting me, until my wife finally asked me to put it into the garage. And late this afternoon, as I was parking the car, it just hit me that I should pop my helmet on and ride. So I did. Not far, and not terribly quickly, either. But enough to convince myself that I could.

It felt...good.

Life is a funny trip, and we're never ready for whatever comes next. We learn as we go along, in some cases screwing up more frequently and spectacularly than we succeed, and the only way to get the party started is to hit the dance floor and see what happens.

Today I rode. Not spectacularly. Not the way I once did. But it was enough. For now. And I'll build on it the next time I step off of terra firma and dig into the pedals. No more waiting.

1 comment:

Kalei's Best Friend said...

When I started reading this, I was thinking what u posted in the next sentence: "And if you choose to wait, you'll be left standing in the same place forever while life simply passes you by." as the kids would say 'duh,no kidding'... lol...yep if we don't take that jump there is NEVER the right time. :-)