How Long Will You Wait?

“How long are you going to wait before you demand the best for yourself?” – Epictetus

How long will you wait? A week…a month…a year…forever? When will the procrastination be over? How much longer must you exist in mediocrity? What pleasure can be found in playing small? What passion can be found in a life that doesn’t stretch itself to fill its potential?

With each second, life slips away. Moments pass, never to return. The story of our lives and the essence of our nature is written in the way we spend this currency of our existence. Is it better to live a life of accomplishment or one of regret? Is our experience in this world better served striving for the excellence within ourselves, or to drift through life as a fragment of what we could be? Is it not better to struggle and fail in the pursuit of merit, than to succeed at the mundane?

In the exhaustion of the grind of daily life, I’ve had to ask myself these questions. It’s so easy to give in to the adversity and challenges that face you. It’s easy to relent and seek the sympathy of those all too eager to comfort you for capitulating to the discomfort. So many are thrilled when you finally become “sensible” and “reasonable” about your ambitions.

I find no peace or comfort in that sensibility. I find no passion in that reasonable existence. As George Bernard Shaw stated, “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

I desire that progress – for myself and the world around me. I desire to be that progress. So, I will wait no more before demanding the best for myself. I will advocate that others wait no longer as well. We have this moment. The choices we make now will reverberate throughout our future. Let this moment be remembered as the instant you let go of the mediocre to embrace the best version of yourself.