The other day, I was walking past a park and I saw a group of a few dogs and their owners enjoying the nice weather. Two bigger dogs played in the grass, chasing each other around the wide expanse of the park and playing a pleasant game of fetch with one of their humans. Meanwhile, a Chi Wawa sat tentatively and watched from a bench nearby. The poor thing alternated between taking forlorn glances at his two bigger friends and pawing at the front of the bench as if to jump. However, after a short while off doing this, the small dog seemed to accept that jumping off the bench was an impossible option and lay down, resting his head on his folded paws in defeat.

Sometimes it’s not just small dogs that have trouble making a change in their unfavorable life situations. To put thing simply, we humans like familiar things. Newness means uncertainty, and uncertainty gives cause for worry. We view familiarity as safe because we know what to expect and how to react. For a society that glorifies spontaneity to such a wondrous extent, we ironically have an equally great fear of the unknown. We want to make such fantastic changes in our lives and in the world around us, yet we feel such a need to plan out every minute detail that the outline is never complete, and the execution never occurs.

If we wait until the right time to act, we will never act. Imagine a fledgling bird in her attempt to fly for the first time. Each day, she could decide it was not the right time to try. Whether it be too windy, too rainy, too hot or too cold, there will always be a reason why she may fall. But if this type of debate were to happen, birds would never fly; they would simply sit waiting in their nests their whole lives. There is never a perfect time to act. We simply must act at an imperfect time, and then learn to accept life’s imperfections.

We simply cannot refuse to take any form of action and spend our lives living with the ghosts of what might have been. A life that is so full of regrets is no life at all. It is mournful to live with so much unrealized potential, to live with the fact that we were too afraid to let ourselves fly. A life of planning and a life off missed opportunities is far more difficult to live with than a life of mistakes and minor miscalculations.

Stop planning. Stop waiting for the perfect moment to be everything you’ve ever dreamed of. Speak up now, and fix the details as you go along. The worst regrets are those of missed opportunities, so live as though your happiness depends on it, because it just may.