Emerson warns that excessive preparation can become a substitute for living. Planning, training and waiting for better conditions may appear prudent, but they can also consume the very time they are intended to improve. His point is that life is already taking place while people are preparing for some imagined future moment when they will finally begin.

Within Prudence, the statement qualifies a purely cautious approach to life. Emerson values practical judgement, but he also recognises that caution can become self-defeating when it delays action indefinitely. The quotation therefore draws attention to the limits of preparation: readiness has value, but it should serve experience rather than replace it. More broadly, the line suggests that a meaningful life requires participation in the present, not only preparation for what may come later.