When the clouds are full of water, it rains. When the wind blows down a tree, it lies where it falls. Don’t sit there watching the wind. Do your own work. Don’t stare at the clouds. Get on with your life.Ecclesiastes 11:3-4 (The Message)
Investors know that timing is everything – but they also know that no one gets timing right all the time. So they preach that successful investing is achieved through consistency and diversity over time. When the sun shines. Even when it rains cats and dogs. Of course someone bought Apple stock at the right time and got rich – but Forrest Gump was a make-believe character. And none of the can’t-miss stock tips I’ve received have made me rich. (Though I may just be listening to the wrong people.)
One of my kids asked me when I knew I was ready to have kids. The answer was simple; when Lindsey, my first child was born. Nothing but the miracle of birth could have prepared me for fatherhood.
Business plans are great. Outlines are wonderful. Planning, pondering, preparing, predicting, and other forms of prognosticating on what is the best path to take are necessary for success. And there are better times to make a move than others. But if we wait for the perfect time – or until we think we know when the perfect time is – we’ll never act.
Phrases that show the importance of timing, like strike when the iron is hot, are insightful, but so is the simple adage that there is no time like the present.
In Aesop’s Fable of the ant and the grasshopper, the ant followed Solomon’s advise to not stare at the clouds but work – get on with your life. Consistency over time.
Marriage. Kids. New home. New city. New career. New workout program. New endeavor. New habit. New attitude. New mission. New you. Plan and ponder. But don’t kid yourself that you can measure every cause and effect to the point of knowing the perfect time to act and do.
The uncertainties of life and the Law of Unintended Consequences mean that even the very best plans get scrapped and rewritten once we start the journey. Doesn’t mean the plans were bad. But it does remind us that the only test of whether something we want to do is possible is trying it. Doing it.
So what’s on your heart and mind these days? And what are you waiting for? There’s no time like the present.
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