Recently I finished a task that I’d been putting off for months. As is typical for me, I kept putting the thing off, thinking I’d feel better up to it at a later point. Every day for weeks I’d say to myself, “I’ll do it tomorrow.” As more time went by, I changed my mantra to “I’ll get to it eventually.” And as often happens, the task became more daunting in my mind while also literally becoming harder to accomplish (in this case, because I’d lost my access to some key paperwork in the intervening time). Then a crisis point was reached, so I had to act, whether I felt up to it or not.
It doesn’t matter what the task was, which is why I haven’t spelled it out. What matters is that I’m old enough to know that procrastination is a dumb-ass way of handling things. Experience has taught me that nothing becomes easier by letting it sit. Though there are admittedly some things that become irrelevant if you let them sit long enough, they’re still things that ought to have been done, and there’s always something lost in the not-doing. Leaving a task to weigh on your mind also causes guilt and stress, neither of which is fun or conducive to good living.
Everything worked out fine this time, but what if it hadn’t? I’ve had several of these types of situations recently, things that ultimately turned out OK but that could have cost me (or someone close to me) because of my delay. I was stupid to allow that possibility. And I know that as I grow older, the perils of procrastination will only increase, and that to procrastinate over something it to risk never doing it. I must remember that time is not on my side and that procrastination is all risk and no reward.