If you want to be certain, you should never get married. You should never change jobs. In fact, you might as well just stay home. Because I don’t know anybody who is certain. That need to be certain is just procrastination.

Burnett frames “certainty” as an impossible standard people invoke to avoid committing to consequential choices. By pushing the logic to absurdity—never marrying, never changing jobs, never leaving home—he suggests that most meaningful life steps require acting amid incomplete information. The line “that need to be certain is just procrastination” recasts hesitation as a self-protective delay tactic: a way to postpone risk, responsibility, or potential failure while claiming rational caution. The quote functions as pragmatic counsel aligned with entrepreneurial and creative decision-making, where progress depends less on perfect assurance than on tolerating ambiguity and learning through action.