Have you ever been going about your day, loafing around, walking somewhere, when suddenly your stomach falls and there’s a weird itching thought in the back of your mind:
“There’s something I should be doing right now”.
And you don’t have an inkling what that thing is, but it feels important. So you think, try to pull it out of whatever recess of your mind it’s hiding in, because if it’s important then it needs doing. You need to go get it done.
And in an instant it comes back to you. That assignment, due next Friday. Or that appointment you were meant to book. Or the call you’re supposed to make. It could be anything at all. But regardless of how easy it would be for you to do it, irrespective of how simple it would make things if it were done and dusted and out of the way, suddenly you wish you hadn’t remembered it after all. And you willfully push it away, push it out of your mind completely.
Except you haven’t, not one bit. And you know full well that it’s still there, squatting in that same dusty corner it was in before. Whispering to the deepest part of you that it’s still there, still waiting.
It’s never just one either, not if you’re me. There’s a whole horde of them in there, stamping and yammering. Take driving for instance. I don’t have my license, but took lessons over the summer. My instructor told me I’d learned quickly and was pretty much test-level. But my theory will run out in February. So obviously I book my test as fast as possible, get more practice lessons lined up before it, and get it done, right?
Right?
No. I sit on my metaphorical haunches and do nothing except feel bad about it. But because I’ve willed to forget it’s an issue, I then feel bad and don’t know why. Just moments before writing this I stared out the window and wondered what on earth I was stressed about. Oh yeah. Driving.
Why do we do this? We (I say ‘we’ in the hopes some other poor souls reading this can relate) do ourselves no favors doing it. We only stack up more worries for ourselves.
I have no real conclusion to this self-rant. There is no quick fix, except the most obvious – do the thing. Make at least one, tiny, itty-bitty-little baby step towards getting it done, towards being rid of it. It’s the only way to chuck the little squatting thoughts out for good – finish the task. So whatever it is you’re avoiding doing, whether banal or frightening, filing a report or expressing your true feelings to someone, go do it. Be done with it.
(And for those wondering, Resourcing will continue next week).