He Who Hesitates . . . Dies

It’s no secret that conditions change quickly. Whether they are conditions in your life or business, what is true one moment may not be true the next.

 

I often walk through the woods near my home on a path that passes several streams. Until a few days ago, everything seemed fairly normal with these streams. Then, as if it happened overnight, the water levels dropped noticeably. One particular stream stopped flowing. It may just be my awareness this year, but I don’t recall seeing this occur in the previous 2 years I walked this path.

 

Then, just as suddenly, that one stream that stopped flowing went from a small pond, to a small puddle. Overnight. As I stopped and took advantage of this unusual opportunity to explore the rarely exposed stream bed, I noticed a great deal of movement in the puddle. It was filled with several small fish that did not swim to safety when they had the chance before the stream began to dry up. Now, they were stuck and left vulnerable in an ever-shrinking mud hole, which by my guess, gave them only 1 or 2 days left to live, especially if rains did not come soon.

 

Watching them frantically swim in the little puddle of muddy water, coming to the surface every now and then to gulp some air, it was hard not to reflect on the situations in my life where I perhaps did not act as quickly as I should have, and my indecision left me in a very vulnerable position with very few, if any, options.

 

Watching this lesson in life unfold before my eyes reminded me of one of my favorite quotes I heard at a business seminar, “Hesitation is the leading cause of road kill.”

 

The next day when I walked past this puddle, the water, and the fish, were gone. All that was left in its place was a drying stream bed and tracks from a smart raccoon who easily feasted on the fish that were left so vulnerable.

 

Where in your life have you, or are you, hesitating when you know you should take action? Are you doubting your instinct and not trusting yourself to make a certain move? The Universe rewards action; even more so if it is immediate action. Don’t delay and get caught in the mud hole. Chances are, that will only lead to you becoming someone else’s meal.

 

The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it.

– W. M. Lewis

 

Stop waiting for your life to begin, or for conditions to be just perfect before you do something you know you need to do or have always wanted to do. Take action now. Your life will feel uniquely rewarded and enriched by doing so.

 

Or, like the wise men in this video, and in corporations across the globe . . . you could just have a meeting.