You can write a blog post about an experience you had. You can learn about music when you’re in your 40s. Start reading classic literature in your 50s. Learn how to fix things in your 60s. Start hosting parties in your 70s.

You can do all these things right now, and nobody is stopping you.

With all of these interesting things that we could be doing, why do we keep scrolling our phones? Why do we tell ourselves that we’ll do wonderful things in the future, rather than now?

9 Theories Why We Don’t Do Things

1. We’re Scared to Death of Doing It Badly

As adults, we spend a lot of energy trying to keep up appearances. We don’t want others to see us as incompetent, unknowledgeable, or struggling to do something. This fixation isn’t present in children, as I’ve come to see firsthand—they jump into things no matter how bad they are at them, and acquire a ton of skills in a short period as a result.

2. We Think It’s Too Late

Around the age of 30, people often start to believe that there’s not enough time to acquire and hone new skills. From the perspective of a 50- or 60-year-old, this must, of course, seem like a crazy idea. Most of us underestimate how much progress we can make on anything in just a few short years. But a larger question is why it even matters how good you’ll ever get—if the purpose is to enjoy your life and do interesting things.

3. We Don’t Feel Ready

Another pestering obstacle to doing things is the belief that there will be a better time to start. We put all of these prerequisites on ourselves before we allow ourselves to do the real thing. So instead, we read more, acquire related skills, and talk about someday doing the thing itself.

4. We Worry About Wasting Our Time

Worrying about wasting time is a particular problem because of our overemphasis on efficiency. So many of us are worried about wasting time doing something that won’t “matter” or concerned about taking a long and winding road when a shorter one might get us somewhere faster. This frame of mind suggests that life is about outcomes rather than living itself and doing things—which, let me remind you, “you can just do now.”

5. We’re Overwhelmed by Our Options

We are so overwhelmed by all the things we could be doing that we end up doing nothing. Paralysis by too many options seems to be a persistent issue with the scrolling generation. While one idea sounds interesting, maybe there’s another you’ll like even more. It’s easy to waste the best decades of your life, just skimming along the surface of your thoughts and your feeds, never actually doing anything that you want to do.

6. We’re Worried About Appearances

Yes, we worry that we’ll seem silly, childish, or uncool to our friends and peers. This theory is related to the idea of being seen doing something badly, but with its own flavor. Inside all of us is a desire for status and respect, so we mostly arrange our lives to please others and earn their silent nods of approval.

Many of the things you want to do may seem silly to others, especially if you never get good at them. There’s not much credit in being an OK piano player, for example, and so we give up that dream with the even sillier idea that only great piano players or those on their way should enjoy playing.

7. We’re Addicted to Quick and Shallow Ways of Passing Time

This theory has a lot of explanatory power. Many of us know we can do things, and probably could do things if we chose, but we don’t because the pleasure of gliding our fingers across our screens seemingly fulfills our need to act. Without the activation energy of truly wanting an adventure, we’ll never do things beyond what’s expected of us.

8. We ‘Should’ Ourselves into Inaction

Another reason we fail to do things of all sorts is that we’re bad at picking things to do. We put things in our “to-do” list that we should do, or that we’ll feel proud to have done, but that we fundamentally don’t enjoy doing. There’s plenty of room for duty and responsibility in this life, and we should treat those acts with the sacredness they deserve, but why burden our lists with “shoulds"?

9. We’re Waiting for an Invitation

The last obstacle that comes to mind is the idea that someone will make it easy for you to do things. We’re waiting on someone to invite us, teach us, or show us the way. This idea is obviously flawed based on how often someone actually comes up to you and asks, “How would you like to do this thing you’ve always wanted to do?”

For all the many theories as to why we don’t do the things we want to do, there is just one way to get them done.

Get started. Now.

Oftentimes, our passion will attract others who are also too stuck to get started on their own—who knows, maybe we'll start a trend!