Fear is the reason we delay taking an action.  We’re afraid we’re going to fail, or we’re afraid of the unknown.  The irony is that by delaying, we freeze the fear in place.  Permanent fear leads to a kind of chronic, emotional, psychological, and spiritual pain.

Let’s say you’re afraid of asking a man out to dinner because you’re worried he’ll turn you down.  As a result, you delay asking him, rationalising that the time isn’t right.  The longer you delay, the longer you will remain fearful of his rejection.  As long as the outcome is in doubt, you are still frightened.  That fear continues to lead you to delay, and since there’s no perfect time, you can keep on rationalising your inaction until he goes out with someone else.  Then you can shrug it off, say it wasn’t meant to be, and find someone else not to ask out to dinner.  By delaying, you’ve locked your fear in place.  It will be there to delay you the next time you meet someone and the time after that.

Only by taking the action and experiencing either success or failure can you get past this fear.  Stop waiting for the perfect time, it will never come.  Instead, realise that today is the best time to do anything.  This is the moment.  There’s no time like now, so take the action.  It may not always turn out positively, but at least you will put the fear behind you and be able to move on.

There’s a wonderful little story in the Talmud about a wise man walking in the countryside all by himself.  He rounds a bend in the trail and comes upon a pack of wild dogs.  Since he’s afraid of dogs …..  he immediately sits down among them.

One of the hidden points in that parable is that the wise man ‘immediately’ sits down among the dogs.  He doesn’t waste time worrying about what might happen or how things could turn out.  He realises every moment spent hesitating is another moment living in fear.  He doesn’t wait for the dogs to lie down to sleep, or to become distracted by a rabbit, or to start playing with one another.  He realises there’s no perfect time to take the action.  He knows the best time to take action is now.