I’m Not Quite Ready

One of the best parts of being a father is those little moments when your kids stumble over your hypocrisy. Really, it’s the best.

Just a couple of days ago, I was taking my son to basketball practice. Half the battle of getting to the gym is dodging neighborhood kids flying around on their e-scooters. It looks fun—but also scary as hell—they’re going the actual speed limit, pacing me in my Explorer. It’s a school zone, but still.

These escooters are crazy fast and I'm not quite ready for me or my son to ride them.

Anyhow, the point is what my son said as we watched them.

“I don’t think I’m quite ready to do that yet.”

And while he is right, he’s not being totally honest. He’s only been on his scooter twice in the last year, and I don’t know that he ever got both feet off the ground.

“Not ready” sort of implies that they are on the path, progressing, working towards that thing.

I couldn’t hold my tongue, I never can. I said, “Bud, you will never ever be ready, if you never ever ride that scooter.”

He shrugged. “That’s what I said, Dad. I’m not quite ready.”

So, I suppose that is one interpretation of the phrase.

But with that logic, I’m also “not quite ready” for a trip to Mars, to win the Masters, or to play guitar for Metallica.

It’s a mental trick we play on ourselves. It fools us into thinking we are making progress, even when we’re at a standstill.

If I tell you that “dinner is not quite ready,” it implies something’s in the oven. Right? But if I haven’t even been to the store, I don’t think I can claim that it’s “not quite ready.”

It’s about progress.

He is a kid, but what does his comment say about the rest of us?

We all fool ourselves from time to time. We tell others that things are “not quite ready”—more to the point, we tell ourselves.

The book? The beach body? “Not quite ready.”

It feels better than admitting we haven’t started, or we tried and gave up.

We say, “I’m not quite ready,” when we haven’t taken the first step towards those things we think we want.

If you haven’t picked up a brush, you’re not an artist-in-waiting.

You are what you repeatedly do.

WordPress recently gave me an “achievement,” congratulating me for 10 years of blogging on their platform. Loyal readers here at WinWithFlynn know that’s not exactly the truth. We just had our third anniversary.

I signed up 10 years ago. I told myself I’d write, but that I wasn’t “quite ready.”

See how that works?

I wanted to write but kept telling myself "I'm not quite ready." — 10 years?

Not quite ready for the commitment, not quite ready for a career. It’s not just kids that play this game.

The “not quite ready” trap is a sticky one.

Not everyone needs to do 25 miles an hour on a scooter.

I’ve never done it, I don’t have any interest, I’ve tried and failed, I’ve quit, or I’m scared. These are truths that can be useful. Because you can build on them.

But we can’t build on the shaky foundation of “not quite ready.” That’s self-deception. Bedtime stories about progress we haven’t made.

Not ready, and not started, are two different things. And not fooling ourselves is the first step to figuring out which camp we are in.

I guess the real question is, do you want to get ready?

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