We Choose

Why do we procrastinate?  That's the question for today. Here's what happened that forced this question upon me.

Like most of you, we have a pantry in our house, a small closet where we put most of our non-perishables.  Months ago (and I'm talking more than 3) the door knob on the pantry door stopped working.  It wouldn't turn, hence preventing us from retrieving our munchies.  The quick answer to this problem was to remove the knob.  Yes, there would be a hole in the door and it wouldn't stay shut, but we also wouldn't starve.  This was supposed to be a very temporary solution before I could install a new knob.

As mentioned above, this was many moons ago, like 8 or 9.  Yeah...crazy.  I did purchase a new door knob a month or two into it, but it had a different faceplate.  Great!  I couldn't just pop it in.  It required me to chisel out a spot for the new faceplate.  Yikes!  I'm not the handiest handyman so this tested my resolve to finish the job.  In the end, the inconvenience of not having a knob was less than the energy it would have taken to fix it.

Or so I thought.

Today, I was in a handyman mood.  I installed a new deadbolt on our downstairs door, successfully, I might add.  I was feeling good about myself, so I decided to tackle the pantry door knob as well. That, too, was a success.  We now have a working door knob on the pantry door.  Yay!  Now the question...how long did it take?  Less than 20 minutes.  Not kidding!  I spent 9-ish months procrastinating a 20-minute task.  Ugh!

I'm not a psychologist but I do know myself pretty well.  I procrastinate because of fear.  I'm afraid that if I start a project, I might mess up and that will take even more time to fix than if I didn't start the project in the first place.  My fear of failure is way too big.  I need to have confidence in my abilities to either 1) successfully complete a project, or 2) successfully learn from any mistakes that I may make.  Mistakes are not bad.  They are the learning tools from which we may become better, if we choose.  They can also be road blocks in our progression, if we choose.  So the common denominator is..."we choose".  It's up to me if I want to embrace my learning possibilities and become a better person, or not even try and miss out on a lot of life experience.

-Quinn