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. It's that knowing is better than
wondering, that waking is better than sleeping, and even the
biggest failure, even the worst, beat the hell out of never
trying.
--Grey's Anatomy