Maybe It Already Is You

Fabiola Delva: I came this close to never saying any of this out loud. Any of it. The podcast, the book, this voice. All of it almost stayed exactly where it was. ⁓ Some people meet you exactly where the thought breaks off and wait there with you. ⁓ I know a person just like He has no rush to answer. He doesn't fear the silence. He just stays. And in that state... Something in me found room to speak. I shared a thought that had been sitting with me, unfinished, still forming, and he received it in the way you receive something fragile, carefully. And when I was done, he looked at me and said, you probably should write a sub stack on that. You probably have to expand that. We made it to the finale. Those of you who've been here with me, I'd like to say thank you. if you are for the first time, you did not miss anything. And this episode is my answer to him Fabiola. And this is waiting isn't working. I once heard Toni Mori sensei she began writing in her 40s and something in me stopped when I heard that. I thought about the titles in my notes app, the thoughts I put down just so I wouldn't forget about them. I didn't forget them. I just never came back. And I asked myself a quiet question. What would I need to do to start? When I saw that it was possible, I suddenly felt like I had hope that I could become. This season has a name. Those who know Toni Morrison will recognize it almost immediately. It is part of her novel, Beloved, and it is my quiet tribute to one of the greatest writers who ever lived. She began writing in her 40s, and I, in my 40s, for the first time, the world is hearing my voice. That is not coincidence. It is confirmation. Confirmation that is never too late. There is no such thing. Let's be clear on that. And I needed to hear that as much as you do. Before I go further, full disclosure, I am not a psychologist. I am not a therapist. What I am is someone who has become deeply fascinated by observing behavior, my own. What I share during this podcast comes from personal experience and observation. Why does a person feel such deep desire to do something while also being terrified to do it? I have wrestled with this question for a long time. not the ordinary nervousness we all carry into new situation. Something deeper than that. The kind that shows up precisely when ⁓ the desire is strongest. ⁓ What makes it stranger to me is that sometimes the thing calling you is something you have never done before. You have no proof that you can do it. You have No evidence that you the right person for it. ⁓ Yet, the desire remains. ⁓ does it come from? Most people assume desire should follow ability, that confidence should arrive first, that certainty ⁓ the entry point. You know you can do it, ⁓ you want to do it. That is the sequence we are taught to expect. But life rarely works that way. Sometimes desire arises before the evidence, before the credential, before anyone has given you permission to want what you want. And ⁓ think that is because some part of you ⁓ recognizes itself in that thing. not the version of you that exists right now, the version that is quietly forming, the one that has been waiting for you to stop negotiating and simply move. Maybe it already ⁓ is you. You just haven't stepped forward yet. And is where procrastination something more complicated than we give it credit for. We talk about procrastination as if it is laziness, as if the person sitting still simply doesn't care enough. But that has not been my experience of myself or any of the people I observe closely. Sometimes procrastination is the mind trying to negotiate with transformation. ⁓ let me say that again. It is the mind trying to negotiate with transformation. trying to remain the current self, comfortable, Known. ⁓ while being quietly called into another version of itself. Hear ⁓ the pull is real, the resistance is also real, and caught between the the person does nothing. not because they don't want to move, Because will confirm ⁓ something they are not ready to face. And that is where the fear leaves. ⁓ We talk about fear of failure as if it is the only kind of fear worth naming. But there is another kind, ⁓ paralyzing. The fear of confirmation. The fear that if you step forward, ⁓ if you try, ⁓ you will discover that the thing pulling you was real all along. That it was always yours. That you were always capable. And you waited anyway. That is a different kind of grief. It is one thing to fail at something random. It is another to stand at the edge of something that feels deeply connected to who you might become and turn away from it. I think about artists, athletes, writers, people who finally speak. who start before they fully understand what they feel called to begin. From the outside, people mistake that early movement for confidence. But many it is not confidence at all. ⁓ It is recognition. Something in them recognizes the possibility before the rest of them catches up, before the logic arrives, before the plan is complete, before anyone else can see what they already sense. So maybe certainty was never supposed to come first. Maybe movement is what reveals the certainty. Maybe action is what introduces you to yourself. There are people listening right now who know exactly what I mean. Because you have said it, maybe not out loud, but you have said it to yourself. I don't know why I keep coming back to this. I never even done it before. I just need more time. Maybe when life gives me a sign, I will start. But maybe the life calling you is not introducing itself for the first time. Maybe some part of you has recognized it for years. Maybe the sign has already arrived, quietly, persistently, in the form of a desire that refuses to leave. Now, I don't think every desire is destiny. But I don't deep desire is meaningless either. Especially the kind that follows you. The kind that waits for you. The kind that keeps returning even after distraction, fear, responsibilities, and delay. That kind of desire usually has something to teach. And maybe that is the real tension. Not simply, what if I fail? But what if this life is actually asking something of me? 2. Bye! Seven years of waiting. Seven episodes Seven years ago ⁓ I put a in my notes app, And somewhere between that moment and this one, ⁓ I stopped waiting to become. And I started forward. I am a woman who almost kept it all in a notes app. This is the final episode of season one. You have been here for seven weeks, sitting with me, listening while I took my voice back, while I named the thing that had been keeping us both still. And make no mistake, I mean both of us, you and me. Procrastination, fear, and you stayed. For every every pause, ⁓ honest moment. ⁓ do not take that lightly, not for one second. I don't know your name and I know your story, but I know you recognize there's something here. And that recognition everything. Stefan? ⁓ My son, this is the expansion you asked for. I hope it was worth the wait. Maybe it already is you. You just have to step forward. This has been season one of Waiting Isn't Working. Seven years, seven episode. I'll see you in season