We spend so much time preparing for life that we forget to actually live it.

The margins—where we plan, rehearse, wait for the right moment—become a refuge. A place where everything is possible because nothing has been tested. Where every path remains open because none have been chosen.

the rehearsal never ends

You’re waiting for something. Maybe it’s the perfect opportunity. Maybe it’s more experience, more certainty, more proof that you’re ready. The conditions are never quite right. There’s always one more book to read, one more skill to master, one more reason to wait.

But life doesn’t happen in the waiting room. It happens now, in the messy middle, with incomplete information and imperfect circumstances.

what staying in the margins costs

Every day spent preparing is a day not spent living. Not a day wasted—preparation has its place—but a day where the only story you have is about what you’re going to do someday.

The people you could have met. The experiences you could have had. The version of yourself you could have become. All deferred to an imaginary future where everything will somehow be easier.

It won’t be.

the practice of living

Going live is a decision you make each morning. Not once, but over and over. To choose presence over preparation. To choose experience over optimization. To choose the imperfect now over the perfect someday.

Start small. Have the conversation you’ve been avoiding. Take the trip you’ve been planning for years. Create something that scares you a little. Not because you’re ready, but because waiting for ready is how you stay stuck.

what it means to live

Life is not a dress rehearsal. There is no final edit. There is no version of you that will magically appear when conditions are perfect. There is only this version, right now, with all your doubts and gaps and unfinished edges.

The margin is where you think about life. But life itself happens in the center—uncertain, immediate, alive.

Go live.

Not because everything is in place. Because the only life you get is the one you’re living right now.