You Aren’t That Busy

I have some things I should be taking care of, but they keep getting backburnered for more urgent tasks – can’t leave the office until I put out this fire, can’t catch up on email until I file this Forbes story, can’t  even think about fall until I get July out of the way. These are excuses. I have time (not much, but still) to gchat, to read Gawker, to make plans to go kayaking.

And so do you. I’m not too busy and neither are you. Not really. We are prioritizing (consciously or otherwise) the easy and the immediately gratifying and the non headache-inducing over the hard stuff, the complicated, the ambiguous, the heavy lifting.  If the opportunity of a lifetime came along,  our full plates and scheduled-to-capacity calendars wouldn’t mean a damn. Screw distance and timing and drama; we’d be ready in a heartbeat. For now, though,  it’s easier to tackle the menial and the mindless than the things that require digging in and grabbing a shovel. Soon. Next week for sure. Sorry, I’ve been putting you off. Can we push this to September? You know the drill. The self-inflicted guilt of not getting to it is easier to manage than the sting of going after it and coming up short.

Maybe you don’t have the focus or desire or courage to tackle X right now, but you do have the time and the capacity. Don’t kid yourself.