The Time Will Pass Anyway (So You Might as Well Do the Thing)

I came across this quote by Earl Nightingale the other day, and it hit me right in the procrastination nerve:

“Don’t let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish something stand in the way of your doing it. The time will pass anyway; we might just as well put that passing time to the best possible use.”

Oof. Right? That’s one of those quotes that quietly parks itself in your brain and refuses to move.

The Piano Excuse I Used for Years

I used to say, “I’d love to learn piano, but it’ll take years before I’m any good.” I imagined myself hunched over a keyboard, fumbling through scales, hitting the wrong notes, and thinking, Who has that kind of patience?

But then, one random Tuesday afternoon, I had this ridiculous realization: five years from now, those five years will have passed anyway. Whether I spend them complaining about how long piano takes or actually playing it is completely up to me.

And honestly, that thought kind of flipped a switch. I pictured future-me sitting at the piano, hands gliding over the keys, maybe even playing something that sounded half-decent. Then I pictured future-me who never started—still saying, “Yeah, I always wanted to learn piano.” The second version of me looked bored. The first one looked content. So I went for it.

Starting Is the Hardest Part

That first week? A symphony of wrong notes and self-doubt. My cat actually left the room. But there was something kind of addictive about it—the challenge, the incremental progress. Every new chord I learned was like unlocking a secret door.

And that’s the thing with time-based fears: they’re sneaky. We convince ourselves that something isn’t “worth” the years it’ll take, but we’re already spending those years doing something else—scrolling, waiting, wishing.

Time doesn’t care what we do with it. It’s going to keep moving, whether we learn the piano or not, write the book or not, take the trip or not.

The Magic of Compounding Effort

Here’s where it gets wild: after a few months of sticking with it, my fingers stopped rebelling. I could play a melody without looking down every two seconds. A year in, I could play simple songs. And five years later—yep, the same five years I once said were “too long”—I actually sounded… good.

Not concert pianist good. But good enough that I could sit down, play something I loved, and feel proud.

It reminded me that most worthwhile things have a long runway. You plant a seed, and you don’t see much for a while—just dirt and doubt. But give it time (and some persistence), and suddenly you’ve got something beautiful growing.

Time Will Pass Anyway

I think about this quote whenever I hesitate on something new—learning a language, starting a side hustle, writing another book. My brain still likes to whisper, “But that’ll take forever.” And now I just shrug and think, “So what? Forever’s coming anyway.”

Maybe that’s the quiet power of Nightingale’s quote: it strips away the illusion that waiting is safer. The time will go by whether we try or not, so we might as well fill it with the messy, joyful stuff that makes us feel alive.

So if there’s something you’ve been putting off because it’ll “take too long,” consider this your nudge. Five years from now, you’ll either have five years of progress—or five years of regret. Personally, I’ll take the progress, wrong notes and all.