If Procrastination were something visible, tangible—some actual creature that keeps us from our better selves—I believe it would be a terrible shape shifter. Maybe something like one of those Grow A Boyfriend’s: just add time and one day it will be large enough to control you. It would begin as something harmless; a bunny, whisper soft and vulnerable and endearing and completely harmless. What does it matter how I put it off as long as it gets done, right? Perhaps it’s even important, right? I need this time for me, to rejuvenate.
Then. THEN. It grows ever so slightly, while your back is turned. You spin around and it saddens those big brown eyes at you and everything seems fine—it’s a rabbit, for crying out loud. And this game of signs continues while an unseen suspense grows, until one day you realize that it’s not a rabbit, it’s not just Procrastination, it’s big and frightening and ugly—and it’s all wrapped up in your fears. Fear has been keeping you from the work, the effort, the genuine caring that all successes in life spring from.
If I don’t really take the time to write, I’ll never fail at writing.
If I don’t send this letter, he won’t have the notion to hate me for suggesting that he’s wrong.
If I don’t dial unprecedentedly, I won’t be too-friendly-and-in-an-awkward-situation again.
So we distract ourselves with whatever triviality we choose for blanketing our fear while it grows. Hey, if I don’t see it growing at me, it’s merely remaining, isn’t it? Remaining to be dealt with when I’m better suited to face it. Facebook helps me stand up to it.
I am over these silly fears. Who ever came up with the idea of thinking twice about things? Often, I’ve found that thinking about something more than once only gives fear time to giftwrap a good idea with gaudy worries. And who wants that sort of packaging?
Give me back my unadulterated impulses.
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