Why Life Goes On Hold

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Hello everyone and welcome back to the Philosophy of Life podcast. My name is Reza Sanjeide, and today I would like to talk about something that most of us do, often without realizing it. We put our lives on hold. Not forever, of course, just temporarily. We tell ourselves that now is not the right time. We are too busy. We have too much work. We have other priorities. We will come back to it next week, next month, or next year. But somehow, next week becomes next month, next month becomes next year. And before we know it, a meaningful part of our life has been sitting on hold for a very long time. This episode is not about perfectionism, although perfectionism can certainly be part of the story. It is about postponement. It is about the things we know we should do, the things we want to do, and sometimes even the things we are called to do. Yet somehow they remain waiting. There is a thought that came to me while preparing this episode. Your job may help you survive, but the things you are called to do help you come alive. Be careful what you put on hold. One day you may discover that what you postponed was the very thing that gave your life meaning. Today I want to explore why we put things on hold, what it costs us, and how we can finally begin moving forward. What in your life is currently on hold?

The Hidden Fear Behind Postponing

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Before we can talk about solutions, I think we first have to understand what on hold really means. When I say on hold, I don't simply mean procrastination. Sometimes procrastination comes from laziness. But that's not what I'm talking about today. I'm talking about something much deeper. There are things in life we genuinely want to do. We know they matter. We know they should be done. Sometimes they have been sitting in front of us for months or even years, yet somehow we don't begin. Why? Most people immediately answer, because I don't have time. Sometimes that's true, but I don't think that is the whole story. Let me give you a simple example. In our new office, we have beautiful pictures ready to hang on the walls. The frames are ready, the pictures are ready. The tools are ready, the wall is ready, nothing is missing. Yet the pictures remained on the floor. Not for one day, not for one week, for months. If someone asked me why, I could easily answer, I've been busy. But if I am honest with myself, being busy wasn't the real reason. The real reason was much more uncomfortable. I wasn't sure I would do it well. What if I measured incorrectly? What if one picture ended up slightly higher than another? What if later I regretted the location? What if someone else could arrange them much better? Suddenly, something as simple as hanging a picture becomes a philosophical problem. The picture itself isn't the problem. The problem is my own judgment. The problem is that I have already imagined future disappointment before I have even picked up the hammer. And I think we do this everywhere in life. People don't write the book because they don't think they're writers. They don't start a business because they don't think they're entrepreneurs. They don't start a podcast because they don't think they have anything valuable to say. They don't apply for the position because they don't think they're qualified enough. Notice something interesting. Nothing has actually happened yet. Nobody rejected them. Nobody criticized them. Nobody told them they couldn't do it. Their own mind made the decision first. The project goes on hold because the person quietly convinces themselves they are not yet the person who should be doing it. I recognize this because I've done it for years. My podcast is one example. I first wanted to start around 2016. The idea was alive. The curiosity was alive, the desire was alive. Yet I kept postponing it. I always had another reason. Business came first, customers came first, family came first. The timing wasn't perfect. The equipment wasn't perfect. I wanted to learn more. Years passed. Looking back, I realized many of those reasons sounded reasonable, but they all led to the same destination. Nothing happened. The same thing happened recently while studying for my CISSP certification. Every day I told myself, I'll start tomorrow. Not because I don't want the certification. I absolutely do. Not because I don't understand its importance. I do. The truth is that I already know it will demand concentration, sacrifice, discipline, and probably frustration. My mind naturally looks for easier things to do instead. Watching television is easier. Answering emails is easier. Working on another project is easier. Studying is harder. But here's the danger. The longer something stays on hold, the more important it appears to become. And the more important it appears, the more afraid we become of doing it imperfectly. Eventually we create a strange cycle. We postpone because it matters. And because we postpone it, it matters even more. Until one day the project has become so psychologically heavy that beginning feels almost impossible. I don't think this is a problem of time. I think it is a problem of identity. Sometimes we don't postpone the work. We postpone becoming the person who does the work. That is a much deeper question. And that is where philosophy begins.

Identity And The Stories We Tell

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Who is really putting your life on hold? You or the story you keep telling yourself? In the first part, we talked about the things we put on hold. Now I want to ask a different question. Who is putting them on hold? It sounds like a strange question. You might answer, well, I am. But are you or is it the conversation that is constantly taking place inside your mind? One of the most powerful things I have learned is that we are always talking to ourselves. Sometimes we call it thinking, sometimes we call it reasoning. Sometimes we call it planning. But often it is simply a conversation with ourselves. And those conversations are not always truthful. Imagine two people looking at exactly the same opportunity. One says, This is exciting. I may not know everything, but I'll figure it out. The other says, I'm probably not ready. Someone else could do this better. The opportunity is identical. The difference is the conversation happening inside each person's mind. The same thing happens with almost every meaningful project. You want to write a book. Your mind says who would read it? You want to start a business. Your mind says thousands of people have already done this. You want to start a podcast. Your mind says there are already millions of podcasts. You want to study for an important certification. Your mind says you're probably going to fail anyway. Notice something interesting. None of these statements are facts. They are predictions. And most of them are predictions about a future that has not happened. Yet we often treat these predictions as if they were reality. Philosophy teaches us to question our assumptions. So let me ask another question. What evidence do you actually have that you cannot do it? Usually the answer is very little. We simply feel uncertain. And then we mistake uncertainty for truth. I have done this many times. When I started this podcast, I wasn't a professional interviewer. I wasn't a philosopher. I wasn't a psychologist. I wasn't a public speaker. I was simply someone who loved asking questions. If I had waited until I felt qualified, this podcast probably would never have existed. The same is true in my business. There were projects I accepted before I knew exactly how to solve every problem. Not because I was pretending, but because I trusted that I could learn, ask questions, and grow along the way. Many of the abilities we admire in other people were developed after they started, not before. Think about that for a moment. We often believe confidence comes first and action comes second. But in reality, action usually comes first. Confidence grows afterward. A child does not learn to walk because they are confident. They become confident because they keep trying to walk. The same principle applies throughout life. We often demand confidence before action. Life usually offers confidence only after action. This creates one of the greatest paradoxes of being human. The very thing we are waiting for can only be obtained by doing the thing we are avoiding. We wait to become confident before we begin. But confidence is the reward for beginning. Perhaps this is why so many meaningful projects remain on hold. Not because we lack ability, not because we lack intelligence, but because we are waiting for feeling that only action can produce. Maybe the question is not, am I ready? Maybe the better question is, what will I become if I begin?

The Real Cost Of Waiting

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What has living on hold already cost you? There is another question we rarely ask ourselves. What does it actually cost to keep something on hold? Most people immediately think about time. I lost a few months. I lost a year. I'll do it later. But I don't think time is the greatest cost. The greatest cost is something much harder to measure. Every project we begin carries with it the possibility of changing us. Not just the project itself, us. When I finally started this podcast, I thought I was creating episodes. Looking back, I realized the podcast was creating me. Every guest changed the way I think. Every book forced me to challenge my own ideas. Every conversation made me ask better questions. Had I continued postponing it, I would not simply have fewer podcast episodes. I would be a different person. That realization changed the way I think about putting things on hold. When we postpone something meaningful, we are not only delaying the work, we are delaying our own growth. Think about learning a language. You don't postpone vocabulary. You postpone becoming someone who can communicate with another culture. Think about learning an instrument. You don't postpone practicing scales. You postpone becoming a musician. Think about repairing a friendship. You don't postpone one difficult conversation. You postpone the possibility of healing. Sometimes we think we are protecting ourselves by waiting. In reality, we may be protecting ourselves from the very experience that would help us grow. There is another hidden cost. Every unfinished project quietly occupies space in our minds. You may not think about it every day, but it is still there. The book you wanted to write, the certification you wanted to earn, the office you wanted to organize, the exercise program you wanted to begin, the person you wanted to call. These unfinished commitments become mental weight. Psychologists sometimes refer to this tendency as the zegarnik effect. Our minds often continue to hold on to unfinished tasks, making them mentally active long after we stop working on them. Have you ever noticed that a project sitting on your desk can drain your energy even when you aren't working on it? It isn't taking up much physical space. But it is taking up mental space. It keeps whispering, you still haven't done me. Over time, enough unfinished projects can change the way we see ourselves. We begin saying things like, I never finish anything, I'm always behind. I'll probably never get around to it. These are dangerous sentences, not because they describe reality, but because if we repeat them often enough, they begin to shape our identity. And once an identity takes hold, our actions often follow it. There is another cost that philosophy has always warned us about. Life is finite. None of us knows how much time we have. That isn't meant to frighten us. It is meant to remind us that every postponed decision quietly competes with a limited number of tomorrows. The ancient Stoics often reflected on this idea. They did not do it to make life feel darker. They did it to make life feel more urgent and more precious. When we remember that our time is limited, the question changes. Instead of asking, can this wait? We begin asking, should it wait? Those are very different questions. Not everything deserves to be done today. Some things genuinely should wait. Responsibilities matter, families matter, work matters, life requires priorities. But the danger is when everything meaningful is always the thing that waits. We give our best energy to what is urgent. We give whatever is left to what is meaningful. And too often nothing is left. Perhaps the challenge is not to eliminate responsibilities. Perhaps the challenge is to stop treating the things that give life meaning as if they are optional. Because one day we may discover that the greatest opportunities we lost were not taken away from us. We quietly place them on hold ourselves.

Decisions Beat Motivation

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If not now, then when? We have spent this entire episode talking about why we put life on hold. Now comes the difficult question. How do we stop? The answer is probably not what we expect. Most people think they need more motivation. I don't believe that. Motivation comes and goes. Some mornings you wake up excited, other mornings you don't. If we wait for motivation, then our most meaningful work will depend on our emotions. That is too fragile. I think what we need is something stronger. We need a decision. There is a simple truth I have learned over the years. Life never becomes less busy. If you are waiting for a season when there are no responsibilities, no unexpected problems, no interruptions, and no difficult decisions, you will wait forever. Life doesn't stop so that we can begin. We begin while life is happening. That changes everything. It means we stop asking, when will I have time? Instead we ask, what am I willing to make time for? Those are two completely different questions. The first question waits for life to change. The second changes the way we live. I also think we should stop trying to finish everything. Instead, we should focus on beginning. Beginning has tremendous. Power. Reading one page is a beginning. Writing one paragraph is a beginning. Studying for fifteen minutes is a beginning. Making one difficult phone call is a beginning. Hanging one picture on the wall is a beginning. These actions may seem insignificant, but they accomplish something remarkable. They break the spell of someday. Once we begin, we are no longer imagining the work. We are doing the work. That changes our relationship with it. There is another lesson I continue to learn. Not every decision will be perfect. Some pictures may need to be moved. Some podcast episodes won't be my best. Some interviews will be stronger than others. Some business decisions will turn out to be wrong. That is part of life. The goal is not to avoid every mistake. The goal is to build a life that keeps moving. Because a moving life can adjust. A life that remains on hold cannot. As I prepared for my CISSP certification, I caught myself saying, I'll start tomorrow. Tomorrow became another tomorrow. Then another. Eventually I realized something. The exam wasn't waiting for me. Time wasn't waiting for me. Only I was waiting. And that realization changed my thinking. The same is true for all of us. Life is not standing still while we decide. It is moving every single day. The question is whether we are moving with it.

One Question To Start Today

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Before we finish today, I would like to leave you with one final thought. Every morning, ask yourself one question. What is one meaningful thing I have been putting on hold that I can move forward today? Not finish, not perfect. Simply move forward. Because meaningful lives are not built in one extraordinary moment. They are built through ordinary moments that we choose not to postpone. Maybe that is the real opposite of living on hold. It is not living faster. It is not becoming more productive. It is deciding that the life you have been given is too valuable to spend waiting for the perfect moment. Your work may help you survive, but the things you are called to do help you come alive. So be careful what you put on hold. One day you may discover that what you postponed was the very thing that gave your life meaning. Thank you for spending this time with me. Until next time, be thoughtful, be curious, stay human.