There is no such thing as ready. There is only now.
Huge Laurie
Your heart is racing. Your insides have turned into knots. You can’t tell whether you are breathing or not. Even with much preparation, you don’t feel fully confident.
If you’ve ever done any public speaking, you would be familiar with this sense of tightness right before standing up. There is a moment when you must let go of everything, muster all the courage within you, and step into the center stage with a leap of faith.
Every key, meaningful moment in our life works the same way. We are called to embrace the unknown, to venture into unchartered territories, and to risk looking like a fool. Raising your hand at school or work. Saying yes to a new project. Saying no to injustice. Starting a new career. Entering into a relationship. Marrying another person. Starting a family. Restarting a career after 20 years on the previous one.
No one truly knows what they are signing up for.
There’s always the temptation to wait. To do more preparation, to receive more schooling, or to observe what others do first. We may do that out of prudence (yes, sometimes we need that), but the truth is we don’t want to be exposed and hurt. Inaction seems much safer. That’s why we distract ourselves with many things — TV, social media, emails, or whatever feels familiar.
Attributing inaction to not being ready is an easy way out.
Feeling ready is an illusion. There is no such thing as certainty. You can’t possibly anticipate everything that life throws at you. But the cost of staying in the same place is incalculable: everything worthwhile in life requires you to be vulnerable without being ready. If you don’t ever move forward, you also miss out on growth, meaning, and fun in life.
As the actor Huge Laurie once said, “It’s a terrible thing, I think, in life to wait until you’re ready. I have this feeling now that actually no one is ever ready to do anything. There is almost no such thing as ready. There is only now. And you may as well do it now. Generally speaking, now is as good a time as any.”
Being ready is a practice of letting go. If your heart tells you that you must do something, start anyway. Once you move forward without feeling ready, magic happens.