Don't Wait For The Right Time

Uddalaka dissolves a pinch of salt in water and asks Shvetaketu to taste from the top, middle, and bottom; the salt is invisible yet present everywhere (Chandogya Upanishad). Care is like that, unseen but pervasive when offered in time. On a cluttered Tuesday, I stepped out between meetings and rang my mother, two minutes that changed the flavour of the whole day. The reminder is simple: the salt only works once it is dropped in. Affection, apology, and attention do not season a relationship while they sit on the side.

 

We talk about relationships as if they are gardens waiting for the first perfect rain. ‘When things calm down, I will call.’ ‘When I am less busy, we will meet.’ ‘When I have found the right words, I will apologise.’ We keep postponing the tenderness that makes us human, convinced the right time will arrive, like my father, who used to be back home at exactly 10.20 a.m. after his college class. It rarely does. Life tends to arrive slightly late, a little messy, and absolutely alive. Relationships breathe in that untidy present, if we let them.

 

The myth of the ‘right time’ is comforting because it excuses us. It asks for polish before presence, perfection before contact. It stages the theatre of grand gestures and spares us the ordinary awkwardness of care. Yet love, for partners, parents, children, colleagues, friends, does not blossom on a timetable. It grows because we turn up in unremarkable moments, with unremarkable words, again and again.

 

Think about the conversations we delay. We promise to ring a parent when we have an hour, instead of taking the six minutes we actually have. We plan a flawless reconciliation with a friend, instead of sending a humble, imperfect message: ‘I am sorry. Can we talk?’ We imagine a candlelit dinner when the accounts are in our favour and the calendar is clear, instead of sharing a walk and a cup of chai because today is what we have. We tell a child we will play after the emails, after the meeting, after the rain stops, after the dust settles; then we discover that dust settles everywhere, including on our intentions.

 

Under our postponements, fear often sits quietly: fear of being misunderstood, fear of rejection, fear that a small gesture will not be enough. Perfectionism is fear wearing tidy shoes. It whispers that love must be cinematic to be sincere. Yet the heart keeps a different ledger. It notices handwritten notes and quick check-ins. It remembers apologies that arrived before the defence. It holds on to the evening, we listened without editing the other person’s sentences. It tallies presence, not performance.

 

Let me be honest. When we were boys, my friend Satya Prakash and I fell out over a girl during a scouting programme. I felt he was giving her unnecessary attention and that she was simply enjoying his influence over the rest of the participants. I tried to explain, but he would not listen, and I let irritation harden my tone. Then came drill, homework, hockey practices; small urgencies that helped me postpone what mattered. By the time I finally reached out, my apology had to climb over weeks of silence. We found our way back, but it took longer than it needed to. Had I offered a single sentence, ”I am sorry for my tone; can we talk?”, we would have saved a fortnight of distance. That episode taught me that imperfect timing with sincere intent is kinder than the perfect moment that never arrives.

 

There is courage in imperfect timing: knocking on a door when you do not know how the conversation will go; phoning in the middle of an ordinary afternoon to say, ‘I was thinking of you’; leaning across an old hurt and offering a beginning rather than a verdict; telling the truth before it curdles, ‘I miss you’, ‘I am proud of you’, ‘I was wrong’. These are not lines from a grand script. They are the everyday vocabulary of care.

 

If you want something practical, try three small disciplines:

 

The five-minute rule. If a connection would take less than five minutes, do it now. Send the message while the kettle boils. Call on the walk between rooms. Write the two lines that matter.

 

The first-sentence test. When you are stuck, write only the first sentence: ‘I have been meaning to say sorry.’ ‘Thinking of you today.’ ‘Can we find time to talk this week?’ Let the conversation grow from there.

 

The daily anchor. Choose one person each day and offer one deliberate act of attention: a brief note of thanks, a question that invites a real answer, a memory shared. Better to be gently consistent than dramatically occasional.

 

None of this asks you to abandon boundaries or wisdom. Sometimes, waiting is the kindest choice, especially when emotions are inflamed, safety is at stake, and the other person needs space. There is a difference, though, between a respectful pause and fearful avoidance. One is care; the other is camouflage.

 

School life offers daily chances to practise this. The corridor conversation you mean to have with a pupil who has grown quiet. The text to a colleague who carried a heavier load this week. The quick call to a parent to share something positive before behaviour becomes the only topic. The smile and two minutes for the student hovering at the staff room door. These small gestures are rarely dramatic, yet they stitch trust across a term.

 

We forget that time is not an endless ledger. The people we love are not permanent fixtures; they are gifts on loan. Circumstances change. Children grow and move from our laps to our phone contact list. Colleagues change cities. Elders fade like gentle sunsets. We cannot bully time into giving back what we withheld. We can only give now, so that later we have something to remember.

 

You might worry that small gestures are trivial. They are not. A relationship is a picture painted in many colours - dominant and non-dominant; remove any colour and the pattern disappears. A message that lands at the right minute can turn a hard day around. An apology offered early can prevent a year of distance. A laugh shared by the noticeboard can become the bridge to a deeper conversation. Grand moments are lovely; daily kindness is loyal.

 

If this feels like a lot, reduce it to one sentence you can use today: ‘I appreciate you.’ Or, ‘Yesterday was rough; shall we start again?’ Or, ‘I have been quiet, but I care.’ We do not have to be impressive. We have to be present.

 

So here is a modest manifesto for ordinary courage: say the words even if your voice shakes a little. Turn up when it is drizzling and your schedule is tight. Write the message before you polish it into paralysis. Choose presence over polish, sincerity over strategy, and now over some mythical later.

 

Do not wait for the right time. Make time right, by using the minutes you have, with the people you have, while you still have them.