On Waiting for Ideal Conditions

It is almost always true that we intend to do many things we never get around to doing. There may be many reasons for this. Sometimes we underestimate our capacity and hesitate to begin; sometimes we overestimate it, and make more commitments than we could possibly carry through in all the years that are ours. Sometimes we sit and wait for supposedly ideal conditions. But so-called ideal conditions rarely come. If the men who have most enriched the world had waited for ideal conditions before beginning their work, we should have had few inventions, few masterworks, few discoveries. Men have written and painted, thought and planned, worked and searched, often in poverty, sometimes in illness, frequently in unsympathetic surroundings_against hunger, against discouragement, against misunderstanding. There rarely comes a time in the life of any man when all difficulty, all distraction, and all annoyance are removed. There rarely comes a time in the life of any of us when we cannot find some plausible excuse for not doing something we could or should be doing. Often people who intend to be generous wait until they are better able to be generous. But it is surprising how their obligations keep pace with their income. Often people who intend to write spend much time sharpening pencils and clearing desks, waiting for peace and quiet, waiting for an uninterrupted day, waiting for the mood to move_and for many other things which are ideally desirable, but which seldom come all at once. We often wait for more opportune times to set right in our lives some of the more personal things that need setting right. We wait for convenience; for pride to soften; we wait until we think our habits and our appetites will be less demanding, or until our determination to overcome them will be greater, and so the hours pass, the days pass, the years pass, and so does life itself, finding us still nursing our intentions. “Therefore, I beseech of you that ye do not procrastinate the day of your repentance. . .” If ye believe me, ye will labor while it is called today,” for the postponement, the putting off, that always waits for supposedly better times and circumstances, that always waits for ideal conditions, may be the postponement that steals away life itself.