Last week, I ran into an old colleague at the grocery store. We hadn’t seen each other in maybe five years, and after the usual pleasantries, he asked what I was up to these days.

When I told him about my writing and how I’d been traveling more with my wife, his face changed. “Must be nice,” he said, but not in a bitter way. More like someone looking through a window at something they desperately want but can’t quite reach.

Then he told me he’d just been promoted to senior VP. More money, more responsibility, more hours. His youngest had just started high school. “Just a few more years,” he said, “then I’ll slow down.”

I wanted to shake him. I wanted to tell him about all the school plays I missed, thinking there’d always be another one. About how my kids stopped asking me to come to their soccer games because they already knew the answer. But instead, I just nodded and wished him well, because sometimes people need to learn these lessons themselves.

The thing is, we all know life is short. We’ve heard it a thousand times. We nod along when someone shares an inspirational quote about living in the moment. But knowing something intellectually and actually changing how you live are two very different animals.

The mythology of “someday”

We’re all guilty of it. Someday I’ll take that trip. Someday I’ll learn guitar. Someday I’ll spend more time with my aging parents. Someday when work slows down, when the kids are older, when the mortgage is paid off, when I retire.

But here’s what nobody tells you about someday: it has a nasty habit of never actually arriving. Or worse, it arrives when you’re too tired, too sick, or it’s simply too late.

I spent decades in an office, climbing ladders I’m not even sure I wanted to climb. Each promotion came with promises to myself. This is the last push. After this project, after this quarter, after this merger. The goalpost kept moving because I was the one moving it.

You know what finally stopped me? A Tuesday morning when I was 58. I was getting dressed for work when I felt this pressure in my chest. Turned out to be nothing serious, just a warning shot from my body. But sitting in that emergency room, waiting for test results, I didn’t think about the presentations I was missing or the emails piling up. I thought about my wife’s laugh and how long it had been since I’d really heard it. I thought about my kids and realized I knew more about my company’s five-year plan than I did about their dreams.

The cost of waiting that nobody calculates

When we postpone joy, we think we’re being responsible. We’re building security, creating stability, being adults. But what’s the real price tag on all that waiting?

Your parents age while you’re busy. Your kids grow up while you’re in meetings. Your spouse becomes a stranger while you’re building your career. Your body starts breaking down while you’re planning to get in shape “next month.”

My younger brother died in a motorcycle accident when I was 35. He was 32. Had just bought his dream bike, the one he’d been talking about since high school. He’d saved for years, always putting it off for something more practical. Finally bought it, and three weeks later he was gone. Not his fault, just wrong place, wrong time.

At his funeral, his wife told me he’d been happier those three weeks than she’d seen him in years. “At least he got those three weeks,” she said. But all I could think was, why did he wait so long for something that brought him so much joy?

Your body keeps score even when your mind ignores it

Do you ever notice how people plan their retirements like their bodies will be frozen in time, just waiting for them to be ready to use them? We imagine ourselves at 65 with the energy we had at 35, finally free to do all those physical things we’ve been postponing.

When my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer in her late 40s, our entire world shifted. Suddenly, all those trips we were going to take “eventually” seemed impossibly far away. The treatment was successful, thank God, but it aged us both in ways that had nothing to do with the calendar.

The stress you’re carrying today doesn’t just disappear when you decide you’re ready to relax. It accumulates, compounds, leaves marks on your body that you can’t undo. Those knees you’re ignoring now won’t suddenly feel better when you finally have time for those hiking trips. That back pain from sitting at a desk for decades doesn’t magically vanish with your retirement party.

Related: 8 unique habits of low-quality men, according to psychology

The relationships that can’t be rewound

Here’s something that haunts me: kids don’t stay kids. When you miss their childhood waiting for a “better time” to be present, you don’t get a do-over. They grow up, build their own lives, and those moments you missed are just gone.

I remember telling myself that quality time was more important than quantity. It was a convenient lie that let me feel better about rarely being home. But relationships, real ones, are built in the ordinary moments. The mundane Tuesday dinners, the random conversations in the car, the lazy Sunday mornings. You can’t schedule intimacy. You can’t make up for presence with presents.

When my mother died, I realized how many conversations we never had because I was always too busy to really talk. Not about anything important, just the regular stuff. What she thought about when she gardened. What her childhood really felt like. Whether she had any regrets. Those conversations can’t happen now, and no amount of success or achievement fills that particular void.

Starting small is still starting

Look, I’m not saying quit your job tomorrow and move to Bali. That’s not realistic for most of us, and honestly, that’s not what this is about. It’s about recognizing that waiting for perfect conditions means waiting forever.

What could you do this week that you’ve been putting off? Not next month, not next year. This week. Call that friend. Take that afternoon off. Sign up for that class. Have that difficult conversation. Book that weekend trip.

The grand gestures make for better stories, but it’s the small, consistent choices that actually change your life. It’s leaving work on time on a random Wednesday. It’s saying no to the optional meeting and yes to lunch with your spouse. It’s recognizing that there will always be more work, but there won’t always be more time.

Final thoughts

That colleague I ran into? I’ve been thinking about him all week. He reminds me of myself ten years ago, so sure that sacrifice now means happiness later. But here’s the quiet warning I wish someone had given me: later is a luxury not everyone gets. And even if you do get it, you might not be the same person who wanted all those things in the first place.

The time to enjoy your life isn’t after the next promotion, after the kids graduate, after you retire. It’s now, in whatever small ways you can manage. Because waiting for someday is just another way of saying no to today.