What life lesson did you learn too late?

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I’ve learned a lot of lessons in my 60 years, and some of them came at a pretty steep price. But if I had to pick one that I wish I’d learned a whole lot sooner, it would be this: Stop worrying so much about whether you’re good enough to do something and start doing it.

That might sound like something you’d find on a motivational poster, but in my case, it cost me about 31 years. And no, that’s not a typo.

I’ve known I was a good writer for most of my life. I spent years working in journalism, editing newspapers and magazines, and putting words together for other people to read. I knew how to tell a story, and I knew I had a certain amount of talent. But there’s a big difference between knowing you can write and actually writing something you’ve dreamed about for years.

In the spring of 1993, I came up with an idea for a novel that I thought could be something extraordinary. It was an ambitious political thriller, one that would require considerable research and a lot of careful writing to pull off. I talked about the idea with a few people, worked through parts of the story in my head, and imagined what it might look like when it was finished.

And then I did absolutely nothing with it.

Part of the problem was that I didn’t think I was ready. I wanted to write the book the right way, and I wasn’t convinced I had the ability to do it justice. I worried about what people would think if I tried and failed. What if the story wasn’t nearly as good on paper as it was in my imagination? What if I discovered that I wasn’t the novelist I thought I could be?

So I kept thinking about it. And thinking about it. And thinking about it.

Meanwhile, life went on. I got married, raised a daughter, changed careers, got divorced, remarried, and eventually became a teacher. I continued writing here and there, but the novels I wanted to write remained largely ideas floating around in my head. As long as I didn’t actually write them, I could keep telling myself that someday I might become a published novelist.

There’s something remarkably comfortable about unrealized potential. You can imagine that you’re capable of doing something wonderful without ever having to risk finding out whether you’re right. Your unwritten novel can be brilliant because nobody has ever read a word of it. You can picture your name on the cover of a bestseller without having to sit down and produce the first chapter.

The problem is that potential doesn’t accomplish much when you never put it to work.

In 2024, I finally finished my first novel. It wasn’t the political thriller I’d envisioned in 1993, but it was a complete manuscript, with characters, a plot, a beginning and an ending. For the first time, I could say that I’d actually written a novel instead of simply telling people I wanted to write one.

I don’t know whether that book will ever be published. I’d certainly like it to be, and I still believe I have what it takes to become a successful novelist. But there’s something different about making that claim now. I have a completed manuscript to back it up. For the previous 31 years, all I had were ideas and blank space.

And the political thriller? I still want to write it.

In fact, that’s part of what makes those lost years so frustrating. The world has changed considerably since 1993, and some of the social and political developments we’ve witnessed over the past three decades bear an unsettling resemblance to the circumstances I’d imagined for the story. I’m not claiming I predicted the future, but I sometimes wonder what might have happened if I’d actually written the book when I first conceived it.

I’ll never know. I talked about it with people, but I never produced a manuscript. I can’t point to something I wrote back then and say, “See? This is what I was thinking about more than 30 years ago.” The opportunity to do that is gone.

The story itself isn’t necessarily gone, though. I still believe it could make a compelling novel, and perhaps an important one. But it’s also the kind of project that demands extensive research and careful craftsmanship. It has to be an entertaining story first, not simply a morality tale dressed up as fiction. Writing it half-cocked would be a mistake, and I don’t have the time right now to give it the attention it deserves.

One of my ambitions is to become successful enough as a novelist that I can eventually write full-time. That would give me the freedom to tackle a project of that magnitude without trying to squeeze years of research and writing into the hours left over from teaching.

In the meantime, I have other books in mind that wouldn’t require nearly as much preparation. Some of them could probably be written in a matter of months rather than years. They’re stories I’d like to tell, and I believe I’m capable of telling them well.

And what am I doing about them right now? Mostly thinking. Apparently, some lessons take longer to learn than others.

But there’s an important difference between where I was in 1993 and where I am today. Back then, I allowed the fear that I might not be good enough to keep me from trying. Today, I know I can write a novel because I’ve already done it. I also understand that some projects require more time and preparation than others. There’s nothing wrong with waiting until you have the resources to do something properly. The mistake is allowing fear to convince you that you’ll never be ready.

I can’t go back to 1993 and reclaim the years I lost. I can’t write the novels I might have written during those decades or find out where a writing career might have taken me if I’d started sooner. All I can do is decide what to do with the time I have left.

And that’s what makes this lesson particularly uncomfortable at 60. When you’re 25, someday seems like a perfectly reasonable place to put your dreams. You’ve got decades ahead of you, and there’s always time to get started later.

At 60, later doesn’t look nearly as generous.

I still have stories to tell, books to write and ambitions I haven’t fulfilled. I may never get to all of them, but I don’t want the reason to be that I spent the rest of my life imagining what I could accomplish instead of doing the work.

The most expensive word I’ve ever used is someday. It cost me 31 years. And I don’t have another 31 years to spend paying for it.

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Copyright © 2026 Doug DeBolt.