You know what to do. You’re just scared to. This back and forth is just fear. You knew the day you decided to fight this thing. You know exactly what you have to do. You’re a do’er, remember?

-Grey’s Anatomy

(Remember that scene when Izzy and George were sitting on the hospital floor…that’s where the whole “do’er” thing came from).

I don’t know why we put things off, but if I had to guess, I’d have to say it has a lot to do with fear. Fear of failure, fear of rejection, sometimes the fear is just of making a decision, because what if you’re wrong? What if you’re making a mistake you can’t undo? The early bird catches the worm. A stitch in time saves nine. He who hesitates is lost. We can’t pretend we hadn’t been told. We’ve all heard the proverbs, heard the philosophers, heard our grandparents warning us about wasted time, heard the damn poets urging us to seize the day. Still sometimes we have to see for ourselves. We have to make our own mistakes. We have to learn our own lessons. We have to sweep today’s possibility under tomorrow’s rug until we can’t anymore. Until we finally understand for ourselves. That knowing is better than wondering, that waking is better than sleeping, and even the biggest failure, even the worst, most intractable mistake, beat the hell out of never trying.

-Grey’s Anatomy