Why Wait?

If you are waiting for the perfect time, here’s a newsflash: there is no perfect time. There is no perfect time to move, to have a child, to get married. Now, before you go off and move to another city, have a baby and get married to someone you barely know, let me tell you the difference between a good time and a perfect time.

Just because you don’t write a list down and check off every item, doesn’t mean you don’t have a list. You know what you are looking for in a partner. You know what you need to consider a major move or career change or to go back to school. You have at least a mental list if not a written list.

So when faced with a major decision, are the big items on your list checked off? A good friend wanted to move to another city, but she was her mom’s main caregiver. There was no way she was moving until she knew that her mom was going to be okay and well taken care of. She was also a home owner, in a slow real estate market. Of course, her job was an issue too.

Once she had gotten her mom settled, she still had to contend with the home and job issues. She had it on the market for several months with no luck. She looked into having a management company rent it out. Even after they took their fee, there was enough left to completely pay her mortgage and give her a little bit as well.
Finally, since she worked from home most of the time, she spoke to her boss about her desire to relocate, and the boss approved.

At this point, all of the major items on her checklist were checked off. Was everything perfect of course not. She had a few friends and family members that weren’t going to be happy with her decision. The move was also going to cost a little more than she expected. Yet, these were smaller things. It wasn’t up to her to make her friends happy and she could get by with the increased costs.

So she moved. She’s been in her new city four years now and loves it.

My point is that everything on your list might not be checked off. And if you need to have everything just so then consider the fact that you might have a case of procrastination masquerading as perfectionism. If a guy treats you well, has a good job, a great sense of humor and is reliable but you hate his cologne, should that be the reason why you don’t get together?

A perfect time to act is always going to be perfect. However, if perfect never comes, a good time to act is often better than not acting at all.