Here’s what I did before sitting down to write an article today.
I got a fresh cup of coffee. I re-read an assignment I had for school, and then printed it out (perhaps it looks less ominous on real paper). I looked online to see if airfare to Europe had come down at all. I asked my daughter what she thought she was good at, then what she thought I was good at. “ You’re good cook. And you’re good at writing.” Oh yeah, writing, I need to do that today. But first I sorted laundry, made the other half of the bed, and wrote out a grocery list, the latter task being somewhat auspicious. I did write the grocery list after all. I patted myself on the back.
Yes, I am a good mom, and a good cook, and I’d like to think I am a good travel writer (I’m certainly good at traveling). But what I’m really expert at is procrastination (gasp), or what I like to call, my Inertia Games.
Newton’s Law of Motion says, in some form, “In the absence of force, a body at rest (mine for the sake of argument), will stay at rest, and a body moving at constant velocity in a straight line continues doing so indefinitely.” Inertia. Inactivity. Yawn. In non-physicist English this means that until a fire is lit under my ass, nothing is going to happen. The game becomes discovering the flame that will light the match.
Why do I procrastinate? I know there are a lot of you who think you know the answer. If I had announced this at a dinner party, there’d have been hushed whispers behind the backs of hands, and maybe some pointing too. “That’s her, the procrastinator. She’s lazy. But nice shoes!”