The Big Lie

Good news, everyone: I’m going to live forever! At least that’s the conclusion you might draw if you examined my behavior.

I’m forever putting off the important stuff by occupying myself with the trivialities of life. Why pursue priorities when there are dishes to be washed and mail to be sorted? Now I’ll grant you that neither dishes nor mail can be ignored forever, but when you allow such activities to fill your day to the exclusion of the really important things, you’ve got a problem. A big problem.

Procrastination is something we all do. Some of us do it a lot. Long ago, I heard or read somewhere that the source of all procrastination is fear. You put off sitting down to file your taxes until the last minute because you fear an audit, or that you’ll owe a lot more than you can pay, or that you won’t be able to understand the instructions. Fear keeps us from even attempting what we need to accomplish.

Sometimes I will dread some absolute necessity so much that I put it off all day because the very thought of it makes for too much anxiety to bear. Occasionally, though, when I finally get around to doing that thing, it goes smoothly and effortlessly. This leaves me feeling crushed, realizing that I’ve wasted an entire day wallowing in anxiety about something that was really a breeze. It makes me feel foolish. It makes me long to have that day back so I can take care of business first, then spend the rest of the day in productive pursuits (or even delicious idleness).

There’s just one catch: you can never get that day back. Foolishness is not grounds for a second chance.

I keep a personal journal. I write in it practically every day. The contents are mostly the minutia of life: the daily doings, the household chores, to-do lists and such. I try to limit to this journal all my writing about writing. I don’t know about you, but writers who write too much about writing bore me. But the pertinent fact is that writing is what I really want to do, and there are too many days that I think about it and write about it, but don’t actually do it. That’s a critical disconnect. No matter how celebrated a writer I could someday be, there’s zero chance of realizing that dream without actually sitting down to write.

I have to keep reminding myself of that simple fact. I have to keep remembering that I’m not going to live forever. I have to keep in mind that I’d rather try and fail than not try and be filled with regret. But why are these lessons so hard? Why must they be relearned every day?

I don’t think I’m the only one with this problem. I think a lot of us are sleepwalking through our lives, with little or no thought to the path we’re on. A lot of us never quite getting around to doing what we want to do or need to do because we think there will always be a tomorrow. It’s a comforting lie, but a lie nonetheless.

What is your priority today? Is it a true priority, or is it one of those things that fills the time so you won’t run any chance of facing your true priority? Don’t sell yourself short. Don’t waste whatever precious time you have. No matter what you might like to think, you’re not going to live forever.

And neither am I.