What Are You Waiting For?

I think that the root cause for so many of our problems in life these days comes down to the fact that we have so many opportunities to choose from. The world is our oyster, we have freedom like no generation has ever had before us and yet this isn’t being reflected in the way we are living. We ought to be so grateful for the opportunities that we are constantly being blessed with but I think it’s having a negative effect on how we’re living our lives and how we view our futures.

We have all of these decisions to make but are faced with endless choices and the enormity of having so many options for every single aspect of our lives is becoming increasingly overwhelming. Ultimately we are left with unfinished business in many areas of our lives and this is stopping us from moving forward towards bigger and better things.

Last year I bought a frame for a newly decorated room in my house and even though I’ve seen so many nice prints to go in it, it’s still empty because I was spoilt for choice and couldn’t decide on one I liked enough; so months later it’s still sat at the back of my sofa printless and pointless. All because I didn’t want to pick something that I might later change my mind about – clearly I forgot that you’re allowed to change your mind! And, well what was I waiting for?

But this post isn’t about finding a way to make decisions about the uninfluential aspects of our lives because this issue is real and it’s affecting more than just our ability to make our minds up about the small things in life.

It’s making us into a generation of indecisive, dawdlers who are so blinded by the oodles of choices facing them that they can’t decide what they want for themselves.

And now so many of us feel stuck, stuck in careers that we aren’t fond of because we’re too afraid of change or taking a risk, stuck in relationships that we’re not happy in or single because we’re too ignorant to notice when something good falls into our lives and stuck living a life that doesn’t make us feel alive because we’re too busy choosing what do with it.

It seems that we’re so busy super analyzing everything about our lives and drawing up the pros and cons of every choice we make that we’re not getting anywhere, we’re not growing, we’re not taking chances, we’re not living life how it is meant to be lived.

Whatever happened to carefreeness and spontaneity? We’re so young but we’re living life partly as though there’s a never-ending stream of opportunities coming our way and partly as though each decision we make is a matter of life and death.

Why are we so afraid to take chances and make a choice?

Perhaps it’s not through fear perhaps we are ignorantly choosing to wait for something better, knowing that something else will come along and hoping that it will be better than the thing we have just let pass us by. Maybe this is our problem, maybe we’re too afraid to claim something for ourselves in case it’s simply not good enough in a few months time or even to the outside world.

So, how do we get ourselves out of this rut?

I think it all comes down to living for today and realizing that when something good comes your way that it’s entered your life for a reason and instead of ignoring it you should just go with it. Trust your feelings and go with your gut before you analyze the hell out of it and treat this decision as though it were being made by a board of directors. Stop looking for something better to come along, sorry to break it to you but you’ll always think the grass is greener and there’ll always be someone better off than you if that’s your mindset. Be open-minded to what is in your life right now, to the people around you, the goals you’re currently working on and the relationships you already have because people won’t stay if you don’t care enough and opportunities will simply pass you by if you’re not brave enough to take the risk.