They wait for "something to turn up;" and as "things" are often very obstinate, they utterly refuse to "turn up" at all.

Their lives are spent in waiting for a golden opportunity which never comes.
Now, Bobby Bright repudiated the Micawber philosophy.

He would have nothing to do with it.

He did not believe corn would grow without being planted, or that pouts would bite the bare hook.
I am not going to tell my young readers now how Bobby came out in the end; but I can confidently say that, if he had waited for "something to turn up," he would have become a vagabond, a loafer, out of money, out at the elbows, and out of patience with himself and all the world.
It was "now or never" with Bobby.

He meant to do something; and after he had made up his mind how and where it was to be done, it was no use to stand thinking about it, like the pendulum of the "old clock which had stood for fifty years in a farmer's kitchen, without giving its owner any cause of complaint." Bobby walked down the road towards the village with a rapid step.