257. Hangups

I’ve been both fascinated and frustrated by excuses. I have them. You have them. Everyone makes excuses. I think about the little excuses I’ve made the past few weeks. I haven’t gotten rid of the mattress and boxspring leaned up against the hallway in my room because I don’t have a truck to bring them to the dump. I haven’t bought blinds for my front room because I don’t have the money or the desire to pick out blinds. I hadn’t built a bookcase because I hadn’t painted my front room because I hadn’t picked out a painter because I hadn’t picked out paint because I was anxious about the color (so I avoided it.)

Lots of these things could be (or were) taken care of relatively painlessly (outside of the money I spent on them.) Painting was just a matter of scheduling, and the color of paint I ended up choosing worked surprisingly well. It was really just a matter of scheduling and effort.

I think a lot of my generation doesn’t want to face that initial grunting effort. We’re so used to things being done painlessly and requiring minimal effort. We want our internet to work seamlessly. We want Netflix to not be buffering. We want Netflix instead of walking outside of our house to get our entertainment. If we’re not comfortable and not exerting effort, we get anxious.

I’m probably equating procrastination with other issues. I’m going to try and tackle some of those things this week. I’m looking at some of the hang up points in my life: blinds, car stuff, furniture. I’m going to take care of them this week. It’s hard to take care of other important things when that stuff is occupying the bandwidth in your mind. Tonight I’m going to buy some new kitchen table chairs and order some blinds. I found some really great ones via the Nextdoor app.

I thought about these hangups when I was at Saint John’s for my reunion. A number of my friends are getting married, having kids, and making plans for the “next” stages in life. I’m still single. (Insert shrill violin noise here.) I really can’t make plans on par with those life stages, but I can control some things in life. I can stay in shape. I can work on my house, and I can work to improve my writing. All things that make me happy.

If you leave those little things to fester and hang up in your brain, it can feel like it’s crowded up there and that’s gross. I don’t like that. I’m going to try and just get the things done that I can. For instance, I’m writing this in the morning with a cup of coffee at my side. It’s something to get done with early in the day so I can feel productive. I like that feeling. It probably doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. It’s just really a matter of sitting down at the keyboard to get those accomplishment endorphins flowing. Hope it helps the rest of my day.