Stop Waiting

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My name is Jay Swanson – I’m an American writer living in Paris on an artist visa. Paris (yes the one in France) has been my home for years now and I have every intention of staying here for as long as they’ll have me. I write science-fiction and fantasy, vlogged daily for 3+ years, and love pizza a little too much. Now I make videos about visiting Paris, traveling in Europe, and try to share what I’ve learned along the way. I hope you enjoyed what you found.

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Patron Producer: Chloe Elliot
Edited by: me
Music by: @Dyalla

The show last night was amazing that was a really good time that was a huge huge setup I was going to say Stadium it’s not quite a stadium but still so proud of Paul that was good but I wasn’t kidding when I said uh Cooper was going

To be staying with Taylor soon he’s with her right now so I’m gonna have to go get Cooper back and hopefully we’ll get coffee with an old friend along the way but before we get to that I’ve been thinking about something that I’d like to share that I think is easily summed

Up in one phase get Out Now this could be taken in a number of different ways but today the way that I’m thinking about it is in terms of growth and healing and waiting to be ready like emotionally ready like I can handle stuff I can do things eventually maybe just start we all have a million

Things that we want to do in life at least I think we do everybody talks about it like they do between travel or learning an instrument or a new language or making new friends or rock climbing or I don’t know whatever there was a Sourdough craze there for a minute I

Don’t know if that’s still going on in the states are you guys still making sour are you okay there are a lot of things that I’ve wanted to do in life that I have avoided doing because of the risk involved because of the fear and because I just

Thought oh I’m not ready yet like I’m not good enough yet I’m not strong enough yet I’m not healed enough yet I’m just not ready to jump into this to really give it my all and in reality it was a bit of an excuse and I think

What’s been standing out to me about this lately has been the fact that time does not slow for anyone and life is moving very quickly and there is a lot of life left to live I have this wonderful experience right now where instead of having like a midlife crisis

I feel like I’m having a midlife unburdening I’m very much realizing there’s so much time and space and energy left to spend like I could learn so many things I could go so many places I could do so much I don’t want to wait

I don’t want to wait for our lives to be over that keeps coming up I keeps I couldn’t I couldn’t not that keeps Popping I’m starving you space good mhm linday didn’t want to be on camera today so we’ve uh decided to put her on the other side of the stairwell and she has declared it acceptable what is the name of this place fet how do you know when to say the tea

And when not to say the tea uh the on you don’t pronounce if it were TT e t the it becomes fet is a is a word like the um creeme fet in the supermarket like a liquid like a heavy cream yeah got me on that one this morning I’ve

Only had one cup of coffee running late on that um the food was really good it was delicious the Autumn shakshuka was amazing if they still have that make sure to get that you got like the breakfast plate which I’m sure they’ll always have yeah and you can choose for

From sides like if you like scrambled eggs or any kind of egg varieties thereof like yeah nice that was very good good and if you got you just need a spot to sit have a warm cup of coffee or a cup of tea and cake or C have some

Cake and be surrounded by books and a spiral staircase that’s really really what it is it’s like if you’re a biblo file and like to just be in the presence of books this is clearly the place to be with classical music say playing classical music love it yeah anyways

This was a really cozy I think we were both a little skeptical and we came in and we I think we’re both one over it’s it’s it’s solid always nice to catch up with linday trying new places that was a new spot I hadn’t been there yet I’ve been wanting

To go for a while but there just too many to check out the city is overflowing with options of things that you can do and see and eat and you know how do you stay on top of it all you can’t that’s not a game that I want

To play at least but I do have a lot of fun trying so much of it and then hopefully being able to recommend some of it to you or to anybody whoever wants to whoever wants my recommendations I guess oh we got to go get Cooper H miss the little Guy I’m so happy that I just get to bounce my bike around like I just crossed the city in 15 minutes something like that phenomenal excuse me I I love it but the thing is that like I never would have gotten a chance to live here had I not just uprooted and come

Here there are no perfect conditions the conditions in which I moved to Paris were pretty brutal like this close to going bankrupt all my projects falling flat no money in the bank everything is just not going well at all and if I hadn’t taken the chance to get a visa

And just gone for it and come here and figured it out as I went I wouldn’t be here today like I wouldn’t be with my hands freezing the weather definitely took a turn for the for the for the chili today I’m so grateful that under whatever naive and sense of drive and

Whatever it is that got me to make the decision to just completely start my life over here in Paris if I’d waited around for conditions to be right i’ I never would have made it here cuz they never would have been right like and and

Given where I come from and what what I had available to me resource wise and everything else I never would have made it to Paris sometimes you just got to take a big risk I’ve taken a lot of risks that have fallen flat on their face but at least in this instance

Almost 7 years in I’m very very grateful that I took that risk and thanks to all my patrons including today’s Patron producer Chloe Elliot for not waiting and jumping on supporting my channel years ago really grateful to have you here it makes a world of difference it

Makes all this possible so thanks for jumping in I didn’t need to verify that this one was good I knew this one was still going to be good but this is going to be the weirdest sentence that comes out of my mouth probably in the whole video I’ve

Been craving baby love for a while and it’s taken me a while to get here but I starving after that run and before I go get Cooper they asked to keep him a little bit longer they want more snuggles um yeah there this just before you get weirded out by what I just

Said the thing is that I didn’t actually jump on it as quickly as I wish I would have I wilded away years of my life wanting to come back to Paris not knowing how to make it and putting it off like I said because I was scared

Because I didn’t just throw myself at it as soon as I could and the thing is that I I you know I don’t hold that against myself because life can be scary and confusing and it can actually be really really challenging to to jump into something as big as moving overseas but

At the same time being here now having established myself having gone through the challenge of it all the difficulty I’m so so glad that I finally did I don’t know who needs to hear this if anybody needs to hear this today uh and I don’t know all that I have to

Offer on this front but just let me say this don’t wait get started right now it might sound kind of cheesy but whatever it is you want really is waiting for you it’s out there but it’s not going to come to you you’ve got to go to it life

It’s not a spectator sport it turns out in the end it can be but I think that’s how you waste it let’s go get Cooper wait wait wait Cooper’s this way Hi bu hi Know