Why you feel like you're waiting for your life to get started

And why "the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation"

My doppelgänger.

One of the most painful ways to go about is by passively nurturing that treacherous habit of not moving forward.

I am not saying to rush, nor to be impatient, nor to not delay if needed. I’m saying to avoid the habit of waiting. Until the time is right. Until things are ready. Until the stars align themselves. Just for you.

Because this habit is one of the most surefire paths to despair . . . to feeling like you can’t . . . to falling into a state of disbelief in oneself, arriving subsequently at the conclusion that life’s most meaningful things aren’t worth the effort.

Why do we do this in the first place, I wonder? Why, for so long, have I done this? And wherein lies the antidote?

If we are industrious we shall never starve; for, as Poor Richard says, at the working man's house hunger looks in, but dares not enter. Nor will the bailiff nor the constable enter, for industry pays debts, while despair encreaseth them, says Poor Richard.

I’m writing this right now because it seems to have been the most pertinent, penetrating problem (and solution) in my life of late. And having thus recently moved myself forward—just the other day, in fact—following yet another period of sloth, I feel at the moment it is what’s most appropriate to address.

So again, why do we wait? Why have I waited?

Aside from a previous aversion to those things that aren’t immediately pleasurable, I’ve waited, in any endeavor I’ve partaken in (or not partaken in), because I thought my action—whatever that action might have been—needed to be perfect. And, indeed, equally as much that there would be some sort of divine inspiration. That God Himself would, in a way, do it for me, or tell me right then and there that the time had come. That I’d feel no pain, or friction, or discomfort, or uncertainty. That I’d just know, and execute as mechanically as AI itself—almost like it weren’t me doing it . . . That I’d just black out for a second and wake up, like I had surgery, with it all done and dandy.

And so, yes, I want to post this today partly because I feel so strongly about my words, but also to walk the walk by putting something out there that may not be so complete, that certainly is not perfect, that may demonstrate to you, dear reader—even if it’s only one, just you—that it is okay, nay, better to do imperfectly, poorly, even weirdly like I am now, than not at all.

For some time, I felt, and admittedly still feel on some days, like I was waiting for my life to get started. Like I was waiting for something, anything! to happen. Like I wasn’t in the midst of doing and experiencing those things that I, a young gentleman, was put on this planet to do and experience.

And indeed, who has themselves not felt this way at some point in their walk? Who can honestly say they’ve gone through life all this time and not felt this feeling? Who can say, in all their years, they’ve not hoped God would do it for them? Or that they needed to escape to some magical universe in which everything made sense? Or that that girl would approach them? That that recruiter would find them? That all the universe would configure itself so as to fit in their very own pocket?

And how many times has it?

Why is it you still feel this way? Are you insane? Have you not, like myself, been doing the same thing over and over and over again—this thing being inaction—expecting a different result? Why do we not learn? Why is this lesson so obscure? Why can we not see what we cannot see?

We all know that fortune favors the bold, but I think we don’t know so well what boldness is. For it is not anywhere on the surface.

It is deep within, hidden, not in plain sight, as we’re made to think.

To be bold is to be silent. Not quiet, but silent. To be bold is to be unseen and move forward nonetheless. To be bold is to step into the night, to take action when the sun is down and the light shines upon the opposite face of the world.

Most people want to be bold . . . or to act like they are bold. But most people simultaneously prefer to sleep when it is dark. Most people prefer to celebrate without having to win. Most people want things now, without having to wait, without having to weather the storm.

They’d much rather sit under a strong roof and sleep in a warm bed, but they don’t want to build the house, nor leave the comfort of their sheets to stoke the fire.

Despite this fact, despite their unwillingness, they still wonder, as I once did and sometimes still do, why they feel like they’re suffocating . . . why they feel like they are leading a life of quiet desperation.

I once heard someone say something like, “The most miserable people on the planet are lazy and ambitious.”

And so, it’s become clear that the antidote to this misery is one or the other: either decrease your ambition or increase your efforts.

Now, of course, we must not be too ambitious. Not just because our mission is up to God, but because love cannot be earned . . . and it is almost always the case that otherworldly ambition is a form of compensation—a vain chase to replace, to fill a void that cannot be supplemented by achievement.

At the same time, we must be sure not to lie to ourselves, and act like we don’t rightfully aspire. We must not suppress our ambition, or else risk dissonance.

You can see, then, that “the only way out is through.” That to live you must decipher what it is you are willing to die for. That to overcome this quiet desperation, you must heed its call.

Because it is not asking you to escape. It is not asking you to concede. It is not asking you to hide.

It is asking you to submit. To follow. To be led righteously down the straight and narrow.

And ultimately, to act.

Trusting too much to others' care is the ruin of many; for, as the almanac says, in the affairs of this world men are saved not by faith, but by the want of it; but a man's own care is profitable; for, saith Poor Dick, learning is to the studious, and riches to the careful, as well as power to the bold, and Heaven to the virtuous.

Until next time,

RB