Earlier today whist scrolling along through Facebook like one does I came across a quote by Hugh Laurie. The quote 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.”
After reading this I was hooked on thinking about everything I thought I wasn’t ready to do. I thought back to all of the times that I’ve used the excuse “not ready” when I simply now think it was an excuse. Starting the quote off with “it’s a terrible thing” stuck with me the most. Terrible is a strong word to use about decisions and that’s what I had been doing. I was ending relationships because I “wasn’t ready” and not following up with opportunities because of that very reason. I hate that. In my head it made perfect sense. It even made perfect sense when I would share this unreadiness with people and they would agree. “Maybe when you have things together, or when you are ready it will work out” some would say. But why was I and the people around me agreeing that fear is equivalent to not being ready?
Laurie says that “no one is ever ready to do anything” Now, a month ago when I was making a decision based on the sole reason of not being ready I would have read this and scrolled past disagreeing. After a series of unfortunate events I believe that this quote may be the new motto to my life. I find that statement very true, you can never be ready for what life throws at you, you just have to take it as it comes. If we all waited around until we were ready for something it would loose it’s value of being new and exciting. My real question here is, what defines readiness in someone's life? How does one know when they are ready? I think you can never truly be ready, life is unexpected and that’s what makes it life. You don’t choose what happens to you per say, you take it when it comes and you make the best of it.
Now, typing this down and living by it are two very different things. My advice for anyone (especially myself) is to accept the fear of failure. It’s always going to be there. I think when we say we are not ready for something we mean to say we are scared it might fail. We push things away that scare us the most to protect ourselves, but in reality we are only pushing away something that could be great.
