The Best Time to Plant a Tree Was 20 Years Ago. The Second Best Time Is Now.

There's an old Chinese proverb that's been floating around motivational posters, LinkedIn feeds, and the walls of every life coach's office since the dawn of time: "The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now." You've probably seen it so many times that it's started to feel like wallpaper — decorative, familiar, and easy to ignore. But here's the thing: just because something shows up on a motivational calendar doesn't mean it's wrong. In fact, this particular nugget of wisdom might be one of the most quietly profound pieces of advice ever condensed into a single sentence.

So let's dig into it — literally and figuratively — and figure out why this proverb hits differently than your average fortune cookie wisdom, and why it might just be the mental reset you didn't know you needed.

What the Heck Does Planting a Tree Have to Do with Your Life?

Let's start with the obvious question. Why a tree? Why not "the best time to bake a loaf of bread was 20 years ago"? The answer, it turns out, is beautifully intentional. Trees are one of the few things in the natural world that embody the concept of delayed gratification in a way even a five-year-old can understand. You plant a tiny seed, you water it, you tend it, and then — after years of patient effort — you get shade, fruit, oxygen, and a place to hang a tire swing. Nobody plants an oak tree expecting to sit under it next Thursday.

That's the first layer of the proverb's genius. It's not really about horticulture. It's about anything in your life that requires long-term investment before it yields a return. A savings account. A skill you've been meaning to learn. A business idea you've been scribbling in notebooks for three years. A relationship you've been meaning to nurture. All of these are trees. And all of them would be further along right now if you'd started 20 years ago.

But you didn't. And that's okay. Which brings us to the second half.

The Art of Not Beating Yourself Up Over the Past

Here's where most people get stuck: they hear the first part of the proverb — "the best time was 20 years ago" — and their brain immediately sprints off into a guilt spiral. "I should've started investing when I was 25." "I should've learned Spanish back in college." "I should've called my dad more often." The "shoulda-coulda-woulda" parade shows up, uninvited, with a full brass band.

But the proverb doesn't stop there, and that's the whole point. It doesn't say, "the best time was 20 years ago, so you've missed your shot, good luck, goodbye." It pivots. It course-corrects. It looks you dead in the eyes and says: the second best time is now. Not tomorrow. Not after you've finished your coffee or reorganized your desk drawers or had one more scroll through Instagram. Now.

The wisdom here is a two-punch combo. The first punch acknowledges the reality of missed time — yes, you could've started earlier, and yes, earlier starts generally yield better results. The second punch refuses to let that acknowledgment become an excuse for continued inaction. Because here's the brutal truth: the same logic that says "I should've started 20 years ago" will be true 20 years from now about today. Future-you is going to look back at this exact moment and think, "I really wish I'd started back then."

Well, "back then" is happening right now. This is it.

Why Human Brains Are Terrible at Starting Things (And What to Do About It)

Let's be real — we're all spectacularly bad at beginning things we know are good for us. There's actually a name for this in behavioral psychology: present bias. Our brains are wired to overvalue immediate rewards and undervalue future ones. The future version of you — the one who would benefit from the tree you plant today — feels abstract, distant, almost like a stranger. Your current self, on the other hand, is very much here, very much tired, and very much aware that starting something new is uncomfortable.

This is why gyms are packed in January and empty by March. It's why retirement accounts go unfunded despite people knowing, intellectually, that compound interest is basically magic. It's why novels sit half-written in laptop folders with names like "FINAL_DRAFT_v2_ACTUAL_FINAL.docx." Starting requires overcoming the gravitational pull of the present moment, and that pull is strong.

The proverb cuts through all of this psychological noise with elegant simplicity. It doesn't ask you to solve present bias. It doesn't ask you to become a different kind of person. It just asks you to do one thing: start now. Because starting now, even imperfectly, even late, even with trembling hands and zero confidence, will always beat not starting at all.

The Mathematics of "Better Late Than Never" — And Why the Numbers Are On Your Side

Let's talk about something concrete for a second, because sometimes wisdom lands harder when it's backed by math. Take compound interest — the financial world's version of a growing tree. If you invest $5,000 at age 25 and let it grow at an average 7% annual return, by age 65 you'll have roughly $75,000 from that single investment. Not bad.

But what if you didn't invest at 25? What if you're 45 and you're reading this right now and thinking, "Great, I've missed 20 years of compound growth, this proverb is taunting me"? Here's the thing: if you invest $5,000 today at 45, you'll still have around $19,000 by age 65. That's not $75,000, sure — but it's a whole lot better than zero. And if you invest regularly from here on out? The numbers start looking much friendlier.

The same logic applies to learning a new language, which neuroscientists confirm is easier the younger you start — but absolutely possible at any age. It applies to starting a business, where data consistently shows that the average successful entrepreneur is in their early 40s, not their 20s. It applies to physical fitness, where the human body responds to training stimulus at virtually any age. The starting point matters, but it's far from the only thing that matters. Consistency from whenever you begin is the real game.

Real People Who Started Their Trees Late (And Watched Them Grow Tall)

Nothing makes a principle feel more real than seeing it in actual human beings, so let's take a quick tour through history's most satisfying "it's never too late" stories.

Vera Wang didn't design her first wedding dress until she was 40. Before that, she was a figure skater and a fashion editor. Today, she's one of the most recognized names in bridal fashion worldwide. Her tree? Planted at 40.

Colonel Harland Sanders — yes, the KFC guy with the white suit — was 62 years old when he started franchising his fried chicken recipe. He'd spent decades running a gas station with a restaurant attached, and it wasn't until he was well past what most people consider "prime working years" that he built one of the most recognizable fast food empires on earth. His tree? Planted at 62.

Julia Child didn't publish her landmark cookbook until she was 49. She didn't even learn to cook professionally until her late 30s. Her tree? Planted firmly in middle age, and it grew tall enough to change American food culture.

These aren't feel-good anomalies. They're evidence of a fundamental truth: the best trees don't always start from the earliest seeds. Sometimes they start from the most determined ones.

How This Proverb Applies to Every Single Area of Your Life

Part of what makes this saying so sticky is its remarkable versatility. It's not domain-specific. It doesn't apply only to finance, or only to career, or only to personal development. It applies to everything, and that universality is part of what makes it so powerful.

Health and fitness? The best time to start exercising was when you were young with a metabolism like a furnace. The second best time is now — because even modest physical activity dramatically reduces risk of heart disease, cognitive decline, and about a dozen other things your doctor will eventually bring up.

Relationships? The best time to invest in friendships, to call your parents more often, to tell the people you love that you love them — well, some of those windows have already closed. But most of them haven't. The second-best time is now.

Creative pursuits? The novel, the painting, the podcast, the YouTube channel, the pottery hobby — all of it would be further along if you'd started years ago. But none of it can be started until you start it, and starting is something you can do today.

Mental health? Therapy, meditation, journaling, whatever tools resonate with you — these would have helped Past You, too. But Present You still gets to benefit. The second-best time is now.

Learning? The world's knowledge has never been more accessible. Languages, instruments, coding, cooking, philosophy — you can learn virtually anything with a decent internet connection and the willingness to feel like a beginner for a while. The second-best time is now.

The Hidden Message: Perfectionism Is the Enemy of the Planted Tree

Here's something the proverb doesn't say explicitly but absolutely implies: stop waiting for perfect conditions. One of the primary reasons people don't start things isn't laziness — it's perfectionism dressed up as preparation. "I'll start my business when I have more capital." "I'll start eating healthier after the holidays." "I'll write that book when life calms down a little."

Life doesn't calm down. There is no perfect moment. The soil is never going to be exactly the right temperature, the sunlight never perfectly calibrated, the rain never ideally timed. And yet trees grow anyway, because the seed doesn't wait for permission to become a tree.

Starting something imperfectly, in imperfect conditions, with an imperfect plan, is not a compromise — it's the actual method. Every single tree that exists started as a tiny, fragile thing that had no business surviving. And yet here we are, living in a world full of forests.

The proverb is also, subtly, an argument against comparison paralysis — that particular kind of misery that comes from looking at someone who started their journey earlier than you and concluding that you can never catch up. You're not racing them. You're planting your own tree. It doesn't matter that their tree is taller right now. What matters is whether you're going to plant yours today.

Making It Practical: How to Actually Start Planting Your Tree Today

Enough philosophy. Let's get practical. If you're convinced — and you should be — that now is the time to begin whatever you've been putting off, here's how you actually do it without overthinking yourself into another year of inaction.

Start embarrassingly small. Don't decide to "get healthy" — decide to take a 10-minute walk today. Don't decide to "learn Spanish" — download an app and do one lesson. Don't decide to "save more money" — automate a transfer of whatever amount feels laughably low. The point isn't the size of the action. The point is breaking inertia. A seed doesn't need much to get started — just a crack in the soil and a little water.

Tell someone. Social accountability is one of the most underrated tools for behavior change. When you tell another person, "I'm going to start doing X," your brain treats this differently than a private commitment. You've now got a social contract, and humans are wired to honor those. Plant your tree in front of a witness.

Measure progress, not perfection. Keep track of the fact that you showed up, not whether you performed perfectly. A tree doesn't measure its growth against the tallest tree in the forest. It just grows, millimeter by millimeter, day by day.

Expect the awkward early phase. Every skill, habit, or endeavor has a period where you're terrible at it, and progress feels invisible. This is the part where most people quit, mistaking the natural growing pains of a seedling for evidence that nothing is happening. Something is always happening. Growth is rarely visible in real time.

Return to it when you fail. You will miss days. You will fall off the wagon. You will forget, get distracted, get busy, and get discouraged. None of that means the tree is dead. It means you need to water it again - consistently. The only way a tree truly dies is if you stop planting entirely.

Why This Proverb Belongs in Your Daily Mental Toolkit

We live in a culture that's obsessed with optimization — with finding the fastest route, the best hack, the most efficient shortcut. And that's not entirely wrong; efficiency has its place. But some things simply can't be optimized around time. A tree takes years to grow. A skill needs hours to develop. A relationship needs consistency to deepen. A life worth living needs to be lived, day after day, even when it's unglamorous and slow and nothing seems to be happening.

The proverb "the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago; the second best time is now" is a daily reminder that you are always at the beginning of something. It doesn't matter how old you are, how many times you've tried and quit, how many years you feel like you've wasted. Right now, in this exact moment, you have access to the second-best time to start anything you care about.

That's not a small thing. That's actually enormous.

Conclusion: Go Plant Your Tree Today

So here we are. You've read through the philosophy, the psychology, the math, the historical examples, and the practical steps. You know why the proverb works. You know what it's really saying. You know that the guilt trip about 20 years ago isn't the point — the point is the gentle, firm, urgently kind insistence that now is when you act.

The only question left is what your tree is. What's the thing you've been meaning to start, the habit you've been meaning to build, the version of yourself you've been meaning to grow into? Whatever it is, the proverb's logic applies without exception. You could've started earlier. You didn't. That's fine. That's human. That's all of us.

But today is a different story. Today, you have a choice. And the most interesting, most life-altering, most profoundly hopeful thing about being alive right now is that today always is now. Not someday. Not eventually. Not when conditions improve, and the stars align, and you finally feel ready.

Now.

Go plant your tree right now!

Saturday, June 1, 2024