The first time the I got the worst advice of my life, I was sitting in a bland meeting room at Whiting Naval Air Station, in Milton, FL. I was fresh out of college, new to town, and had been married a whopping three months. I knew nothing about being a military spouse, and to be honest, I was terrified.

My job hunt was stalled, the house was clean, friends were few. This was my first true, “she’s not from around here,” experience. With nothing else filling my schedule, I attended a meeting for new spouses whose husbands were in pilot training. The email said I could meet some friends, get some first-hand knowledge about how much (or little) I could expect to see my husband over the next year, and get help decoding some of the acronyms constantly flying over my head.

Only three things from this meeting stuck with me. I remember the painfully-awkward ice-breaker, the presenter promising us that we would eventually look forward to deployments (spoiler: I never did), and advice that it might be best to “hit pause” on our own lives for a while.

“This is an exciting time,” the she said. “Your husband is doing something really important. He needs your support. But that means your life might need to hit the pause button until his career is complete.”

Years later, at a different base, while sitting in the clinic, grappling with crushing depression and anxiety the advice came again. The table paper crinkled under me while the provider said, “Your life just needs to be on pause for a while. Imagine the next five years like a clock ticking down. Once you can separate from active-duty service, you can get back to your life. Maybe then it can be ‘your turn.’”

Then as a new mother, I shared my desire to write and teach with an acquaintance who looked at me sympathetically and replied, “Goals like that will need to be on hold until your kids are in school.”
These people all meant well, but living like life has a pause button is bad advice.

Here’s what I wish someone would have said instead:
Life doesn’t wait, it can’t be put “on hold.” If something unforeseen interrupts your plans, or undesirable circumstances cloud the picture of what you expected—don’t press pause. This is life. All of it. Embrace it. Make it work for you. Make your interests and ambitions work as assets in your favor—instead of living as a slave to hopes drafted on paper, or viewing yourself as a failure when goals go unmet. Pursue a path, but be brave enough to maintain an open mind about where that path may lead.

The old cliché holds true: you only get one life. If you view inconveniences and interruptions as reasons to put your “real” life on pause, you’ll end up feeling bitter and burned out. You’ll wonder when your “real” life will begin. Then you’ll wake up and realize life never actually stopped at all. Life kept happening—and you almost missed it.

All of the hardships, small victories, big wins, and deep losses make up the story your life is telling. The part you may have seen as “paused” may turn out to be the best plot-point in the narrative.

Find an abundance mindset deep inside. You can’t always change your circumstances, but you get to decide how to play what you’ve been dealt. Even a crummy hand can score points when laid with savvy. And often those hands make for the best stories.

Life doesn’t have a pause button—so don’t build one.
As a friend recently said, “Even when everything seems upside down and awful, simple goodness just keeps slapping me across the face. Like a reminder, even though it’s not how I imagined, life is still happening, and there is plenty of good left out there.”

Your life is happening. Take it from me, a woman who refused to count down her days, and instead decided to live each and every minute, then went on to travel, teach, and write while being a stay-at-home-mom—embracing the life you’re in is superior to “waiting your turn.”

In the fall we went TDY for three months with my husband. I was tempted to think I was putting life on hold. Really, I was living life to the fullest.
Amy Allender photo

I don’t know where this new year finds you. But my hope for 2024 is that we’ll all hit play. Let’s live, and live it all.
Get more stories and inspiration for a positive perspective by connecting with me at amyallender.com, on Instagram @amy_allender, or Facebook @amyallenderblog.