“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the second best time is now.”

Human beings are creatures of habit, and they extend this habit to rituals, events and times. For many thousands of years, much of the world has had some form of calendar to mark the seasons, the beginning and end of religious observances; then in the West we have take that one step further to include things like New Years, Christmas, Easter, Valentines, Halloween, birthdays… In fact, there is not one day of the year that passes that there isn’t some kind of particular observance, whether or not it is accompanied with a day off work. In fact globally there are likely to be a number of coincidental observances, celebrations, ceremonies or holidays depending on religion, culture and region.

This ritual observance of special days in our calendar, gives us thing to look forward to, they offer a moment of reflection and a feeling of renewal – like the beginning of Spring when all the ‘dead’ trees start to spring back into life, along with all the seasonal animal offspring. I could research and go into the psychological and physiological benefits of this to us as a species, but this isn’t a science journal, so perhaps it’s better to simply summarise it as – this is something we do naturally, it gives us comfort and assurance and it’s part of our DNA.

But there is a downside to this seasonal behaviour, and that is that we tend to frame our lives and our creativity around these rituals and seasons. In fact in some ways we are compelled to because of human herd. For example, no matter how much you need a new job, you’ll struggle to get hired in the last 3 weeks run up to Christmas, just as you can’t hire a deckchair or visit the fair if you visit a small coastal town in February. So we become conditioned to think in seasons, to put great importance on events on beginnings and endings. The downside is this: when it comes to our personal lives, and personal projects – we align them with with the seasons and events. So much so, it becomes a cliche – like New Year resolutions – and starting the gym.

For most activities, there’s little harm in waiting for the ‘right time’ For example, Christmas is a time that people do a lot of eating and there’s a lot of sugary treats being consumed – it makes sense to wait till the season is over to start the gym and try to lose all that gain. But what if it’s August and you need to lose weight – do you wait 4 months for the New Year? Of course not, but for some of us, your uncle included, this is where the habitual instinct kicks in. New Years is too far in the distance, so we look for another marker, another day of significance to begin. “Perhaps after I come back from holiday?” your uncle might say to himself. Then we go on holiday, we come back, and it’s back to the doldrums of boring, monotonous work; before we know it, the ‘back from holiday’ moment has passed. The chance to join the gym has also passed. And this is how the people like your uncle procrastinate, and fail to start at things – because we go from one ‘moment’ to another, one day to the other, waiting for the ‘right time’ to start something new.

If your uncle was to ever regret anything in life, it would be not starting sooner and this is what I want you to know.

A six year old boy at a Church group once imparted to me some wisdom that he had got from his mother: “The best time to dance is when you don’t feel like dancing.” There is truth in that. Often times, it’s not until you’re actually in the act of something that it starts to feel ‘right’. For example, your Uncle has a bad habit of falling asleep on the couch in the basement whilst watching TV. So he wakes up at 5am and what does he do? As quickly and as silently as possible he climbs up the stairs and into bed – and tries to do so half asleep – because what he wants to get that last couple of hours in bed before he really needs to wake up. He’s not ready to wake up and it feels all wrong if he doesn’t wake up in bed. What would happen if he didn’t head straight for the bed immediately? Well that has happened on occasion and the thoughts of the day start to come through, things that need to be done – and suddenly he’s awake. But then a marvellous thing happens – he’s got an extra couple of hours to get a head start on things, or even just take it easy and read a book before his day starts, instead of rushing around in a tired state. And your uncle says to himself “I’m really glad I just stayed awake when I woke up – I got a lot more done and felt more energy this morning than I usually do! I should do that every morning!”

The truth is, there is no ‘right time’ for anything. The important thing is to start, start well, start badly, start at the wrong time, start on the wrong day, start without knowing exactly how it’s going to pan out. But start! As soon as you know in your gut that you need to start something – that is the ‘right time’.

There is an old Chinese proverb that goes “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the second best time is now.” Trees take an incredibly long time to reach full height, but as they get older, they grow faster and they grow outwards, wider, denser and stronger as they pull in more CO2. Humans don’t live as long as trees, but in comparison with most other mammals we do live a long time. From what I observe most people seem to have their most productive years early on, and then shuffle steadily into a life (or desire) for predictability (ritual) and retirement. I encourage you to plant trees, but also, be more like a tree. Your best years are ahead of you. At nearly 40 years old, your uncle considers his last 5 years to be the most productive and educational years of his life so far. There are so many things I could have started in my 20’s but didn’t through fear, through lack of money, through not feeling it was the right time. But don’t wait to plant those trees otherwise, by the time you’re ready to appreciate them, they will still be saplings. Start now. Plant now. And remember, starting badly is better than not starting at all.