Thirty years he waited. Thirty years of planning, of imagining, of putting the pieces in order for their great adventure. Thirty years of hard work, of showing up on time day in and day out, thirty years of saving vacation time to get there sooner, to retire younger, to be ready to finally begin. Thirty years until he retired. Now, he was ready.
He passed away on the first day of his retirement.
All those plans, all that dreaming, all the shuffling of the great chess pieces of his life sat in stillness, unmoved, forever.
“If we wait until we’re ready, we’ll be waiting the rest of our lives.”
Lemony Snicket said this in the sixth book of his “Series of Unfortunate Events” novel series, and the moment I first read it, it stopped me in my tracks.
“Ready” is the lie that fear tells us. The myth it invented.
We’re never ready, this is the truth of it all. We’re never prepared for what will come, what washes up on the shoreline of our lives, the big things least of all. We cannot prep ourselves for love, for grief, parenthood, for change, hell, for healing. Readiness, the gorgeous lofty goal of it, is a fancy fairy tale spun by fear, it’s all the details and plot points and fable-like lessons told through that hypnotizing lens of practicality. I say this with a clarity that comes only as you pass the half-way point of time here on this silly, stunning, beautiful earth:
Every single meaningful thing in life begins not with a plan, but with a leap.
I wrote, in Typewriter Series #268, the poem that came to name our company, to define our lives, the following line once:
We are the leapers and the builders of wings on the fall towards the ground. We are the wingbeats and the sound of flying.
We built these wings on the fall, not before we stepped our toes to the edge. This theme is one woven throughout the story of my life so far. I say this with confidence, with transparent honesty, in hopes that it shows you, you there reading these words and secretly shaking your head and thinking something along the lines of Yeah, but not me, not possibly me: Everything I have, everything I’ve done, seen, found, discovered, loved, treasured, enjoyed, and witnessed, was born from doing, when I was so very much NOT ready.
I was not ready to publish my first poem publicly, only Sarah convinced me to do so.
I was not ready to start a business with my best friend.
I was not ready to travel, to step back onto an airplane after so many years of not flying.
I was not ready to hear that I was autistic, that I was neurodiverse and there was a name for all the challenges I’d been enduring all this time.
I was not ready to fall in love, to meet the person that rearranged every single piece of my existence right at the point where I’d given up on ever finding what I knew had to exist.
I was not ready when life cracked wide open, when all the light beneath that thick crust came pouring out, came exploding out like volcanic eruption, like pyroclastic flow.
I ask you, you there still shaking your head in disbelief, still looking to your left and your right thinking I must be talking about someone else, somewhere else. I ask YOU:
How many dreams have you pushed to the back of your burners, never acting upon them? How many journals have sat empty, waiting for your words to fill them? How many business ideas, chances to work for yourself, to be your own boss, have you convinced yourself you just didn’t have enough money or skill or time to start? How many hobbies are you too afraid to attempt?
Perfection is just procrastination all fancied up. Nothing more.
You do not need permission from me, but I shall grant it in the event you, you there who shook your head at me, think you need it: You are allowed to fail, but more, you’re allowed to redefine success, joy, progress, however you see fit. You don’t need to wait for the money, you don’t need $100k to start that business, you just need to sell that first thing for $10. You don’t have to learn it all to begin, the best way to learn is by doing the thing you are convinced you’re not ready to do.
The truth is, harsh as it may sound, you’re never, ever going to be ready. You won’t ever be “perfectly” healed enough to accept the love you deserve, you won’t ever be ready with the perfect business plan or logo or website to kick-off your business, you won’t ever have enough money or time or expertise to raise those children you’ve always wanted. You just won’t.
No more missed sunsets because it is easier to doomscroll on your phone, no more dreams left as draft. No more someday, no more mornings promising yourself that tomorrow you’ll start again, start fresh. No more waiting, no more times sitting on the sideline while you wait for your fear to grow into something you can finally name bravery. No more. There is now, nothing else. Now.
Let’s define them all, all the things we’re waiting to do. Let’s call them out, together, let’s hold each other accountable for all we’re convinced we’re not ready to do. Let us create a community of FIRST STEPS, the tiny little incremental movements forward that create motion, the motion that creates all the magic that will follow. We lock ourselves in stillness, petrified to take that first baby step forward, we waste years and years and years rooted to one place, when, as Yehuda Amichai once said: “Behind this, some great happiness is hiding.”
You, you there no longer shaking your head, you there nodding it up and down in understanding, JOIN us. Let this Signal Fire transform itself into a community of First Steps, of 5-minute actions we take today, NOW, to do, see, learn, try, love, become, all we have been waiting for.
This Signal Fire is here, it’s brightly lit every Sunday like trusty clockwork, to remind you, to inspire you, to convince you that even though we’ll never be ready, we can stop waiting, we can start living, today. Now.
“If we wait until we’re ready, we’ll be waiting the rest of our lives.” Those lives begin here. I cannot wait a breath longer.
Let’s go.
