There Is No Perfect Moment
I’ve liked a guy for over a year. It’s pathetic; you don’t need to tell me twice. I know it’s pathetic. Have I told this boy that I liked him? No. Why wouldn’t I just get it over with, you might ask? Sometimes I think it’s because I would rather live in uncertainty where there is a possibility that he might like me back; rather than face a potential reality of him not feeling the same way. I know it’s foolish. I know this because the mental torture of being in this sort of purgatory isn’t really worth it. Especially about something that could end up being absolutely nothing in the end. But ultimately I am where I am because for the last year, I’ve been waiting for the perfect moment.
I know in my heart that perfect moments do not exist. I know in my heart that courage is one of the most important virtues in anything in life. Yet I still concoct in my head a perfect scenario where the opportunity will present itself and I can finally say what I’ve wanted to say for a long time. But the longer I wait, the smaller the window of opportunity seems to be. And the more I think about it, the more I wonder if I’ve waited too long. And I wonder if that perfect moment I’ve been waiting for was actually dressed in imperfection; and I wonder whether it hasn’t already come and gone.
The funny thing is this situation is very anti-me. I am the queen of, “If you want something, go for it.” My mantra for life is always “No guts, no glory.” But I’ve known for a long time that vulnerability in this context is not my strong suit. And despite being this otherwise outwardly outgoing person, I find myself retreating from this risk. And every time I do, I feel like a fraud. A fraud who insists on a perfect moment – a moment that I keep hoping against hope for; a moment that I know doesn’t exist. Yet hope and wishes and dreams are powerful aren’t they?
To me this situation or perhaps this lack of a situation is so representative of what many of us go through every day. We are always looking for the right time to do something. We create this notion of what the right time looks like; what it will consist of, and who we will be when that time arrives. But we know better; in our hearts we know better. We know that the right time is always and only the time that we have in every moment. Everything else is a farcical.
But the truth is we wait for perfect moments because we don’t think that we are enough in the moments that we have. We wait for the opportunities that are staring at us in the face, and those opportunities are waiting for us to have those five seconds of courage. Whether it’s a boy or a vocation or a job or a life that we think we want to lead – we think we’re not pretty enough, or smart enough, or talented enough, or interesting enough, or simply enough, for our many imperfect moments.
There is no perfect moment. And I think that if we keep waiting for one, we cripple ourselves from being in the moment we find ourselves in. Even as I write this, I wonder if I’ll ever get the courage to do something as simple as tell this boy I like him. I have never been good at dancing around issues; I want to be direct and straightforward. It’s who I am but in this context, I can’t seem to simply be who I am. I guess we all have our Achilles Heel. And as someone who could see right through me said one, “You’re outgoing and confident but you’re still painfully shy at the same time.” I think this is true of a lot of people.
But about perfect moments I do know that if we keep waiting for them, we’ll be waiting a really long time; we’ll be waiting in vain. And in the end, those imperfect moments that we ignored or were afraid of, could have been our saving grace. If not for any other reason than to finally know what the outcome of our courage is, those imperfect moments would be worth it. It would be worth it even if things don’t work out the way we want them to. Because through any moment’s imperfection, knowing is better than wondering; knowing is infinitely greater than having to live in wonder.