Hamlet was one complicated dude who couldn’t make up his mind. Image from cyborboris.wordpress.com.

Has this ever happened to you?

You finally work up enough nerve to ask someone out, but the person already has a date.

You ponder for days whether to put in for that new job at work, only to find out that someone else is being considered for it.

You see an item on sale but decide to think it over before buying it. When you return, it’s gone.

You read about a new business with the exact same concept you’ve been mulling over for months.

We shouldn’t be shocked when opportunity slips through our fingers, but each time it happens we are. That’s because the whole time we’re agonizing over a decision, turning it over and over in our mind, we think the rest of the world has come to a screeching halt. We think that when we’re ready, life will resume right where we left off. There’s only one problem, life doesn’t have a pause button.

I had a small reminder of that a few days ago. I’ve been thinking about making some design changes to The Wayward Journey. After all, it’s been two years since I first tinkered with the current design. I figure it’s time for a new look.

You can see the design I really like on Tim Brown’s blog, Design Thinking. He is the president and CEO of IDEO and the author of “Change By Design.” Ever since I discovered his blog, I’ve admired its clean look. Yeah, it’s words with a photo, just like mine, but they look so much better on his blog.

Say it ain’t so! The 8BIT team is calling it quits.

I got really excited when I learned that the WordPress theme he uses is available for purchase from a team of developers called 8BIT. I thought, this is it! When I’m ready to upgrade The Wayward Journey, I’ll go to the 8BIT site and buy the theme.

That was in December. So what do you suppose I found out when I went to download the theme on Tuesday?

The company is going out of business! How could they do this to me when I was SO close to making my decision?

In a farewell message posted on its website, 8BIT recommends that users consider two other well-known WordPress partners: WooThemes and StudioPress. I am familiar with both of them; in fact, my JMC website is built on the Agency StudioPress theme. I don’t want StudioPress. I don’t want WooThemes. I want 8BIT!

But as John Saddington, 8BIT’s lead developer, wrote in his blog, “There’s only one real guarantee in this life (besides death and taxes, of course)—and that’s change. It happens to all organizations of all sizes, it occurs for every product big and small.”

So don’t be a Hamlet. No one ever got ahead by putting life on hold.