The Biggest Mistake I Made Was Thinking I Had Time

Sometimes life forces you to choose. To do, or not to do. To go, or not to go. It’s either yes or no. And indecision? That’s a choice too. Wait too long, and the opportunity is gone.

We like to think hesitation is wise, that we’re gathering information, weighing options, making sure it’s right. But most of the time, it’s not about wisdom at all. It’s fear. Fear of discomfort. Fear of uncertainty. Fear of choosing wrong.

We focus more on what we might lose than on what we could gain, a bias most humans carry. So we wait. We analyze. We overthink. And all the while, the opportunity slips quietly out the back door, leaving behind only the idea of what could have been.

You chose, even if it doesn’t feel like it. Avoiding, delaying, prioritizing other things: it’s still a choice. And when you do, you’re the one keeping yourself stuck.

That truth isn’t pleasant. So we soften it with comforting words, rationalizations, and explanations. We tell ourselves the story that helps us sleep at night. And yes, comfort feels good. But don’t confuse comfort with agency.

One of the most comforting moves of all is pointing the blame somewhere else. At others, at circumstance, at our past, our parents, our trauma. Pointing fingers feels easier, softer even, when it hurts. But it won’t help. True control comes when the person you look at in the mirror is you.

Avoiding, delaying, prioritizing other things: it’s still a choice.

There’s a book I read a few years ago, The Courage to Be Disliked, based on Adlerian psychology. Adler’s idea is simple: we are not determined by our past, but by the meaning we give it and the choices we make now.

We all start somewhere. And we don’t get to choose where we begin. Sometimes the odds aren’t in your favor. One of my favorite examples of this is the Sugarscape model, created by Joshua M. Epstein and Robert Axtell in the early 1990s.

Sugarscape is a social simulation that represents a digital world. A landscape with agents, little humans, who need to eat to survive. What they eat is sugar. They move around, gather resources, trade when they can, and make simple decisions in a world governed by a few basic rules. What’s fascinating is what emerges: patterns of privilege, scarcity, and inequality, even when everyone starts with the same rules. Each agent’s fate depends on where it begins and the decisions it makes next. They can only move one step at a time, left, right, up, or down, with no view beyond the next move.

Fortunately, unlike the agents in Sugarscape, we aren’t limited to a single step left or right. We have the ability to move more and see more than one step ahead. We can act, anticipate, and create possibilities that don’t exist yet. We can choose our direction intentionally rather than being bound to the rules of a simplified world. Luckily, we have the opportunity to shape our life rather than merely reacting to circumstance.

At some point, your life becomes your responsibility. Point blame outward, and you become a victim of circumstance. Look in the mirror and reclaim control over your actions, your choices, your emotions. These are the things that shape your life. Would you even want to outsource responsibility for them?

Action doesn’t guarantee success. Some things work. Some don’t. But action always moves you forward. You learn. You adjust. Things happen. Opportunities appear. You become someone new with every move you make and every decision you take.

I’ve waited too. I’ve hesitated. I’ve been afraid. I wanted certainty, which is mostly an illusion. I told myself I’d do it later. And sure, that sounds reasonable. But all I was really doing was delaying myself.

Delay is soft. Almost comforting. But it keeps you exactly where you are. I want more. And I suspect you do too.

Indecision feels safe in the moment, but it’s expensive over time.

The price for more is discomfort and uncertainty. The reward is agency and growth. Indecision feels safe in the moment, but it’s expensive over time. It costs momentum, progress, opportunity, confidence, agency, and growth.

Life doesn’t give an endless runway. Some doors close. When a choice is forced, waiting is just another way of saying no. That’s fine if it’s intentional. But when it’s fear, procrastination, or laziness, it steals more than opportunity. It steals your freedom to create life on your own terms.

You don’t have to be fearless. You just have to be willing to feel the fear and do it anyway (thank you, Susan Jeffers). Most yeses are recoverable. Most paths aren’t set in stone. Most mistakes aren’t wasted. They become stories you learn from or smile about later.

What isn’t recoverable is time spent frozen while life keeps moving without you. And the older you get, the clearer this becomes: time is the most valuable thing you have and one of the few things you can truly never get back.

You can earn back money. You can replace material things. But you can’t buy back an opportunity once the window has closed.