We’ve all been there. The nagging in the back of your mind telling you that you’ve skipped out long enough on finishing that one last chore. Time to write out that shopping list for the big party next weekend. Time to balance your budget. Time to write thank-you letters to everyone who sent you house-warming gifts. Time to do your taxes.
“But I don’t wanna!” you say. “I can do it tomorrow!”
Tomorrow! Tomorrow! There’s always tomorrow!
And tomorrow comes, and you say, “Naw, I don’t feel like it. I need to be in the right mood.”
Sit down, shut up, and do the work.
Knuckle down and buck up. Your taxes aren’t going to do themselves. Letter self-writing technology hasn’t been invented yet. And you must be lucky if you’re rich enough that you can’t balance your budget in one afternoon. Grab a pen, or power up the computer, and get cracking.
Little chores are like gnats. They hover about you, buzzing incessantly, annoying you with the fact of their incomplete existence. Leave too many of them unfinished, and you have a real swarm of tasks waiting for the inevitable. They have to get done.
“I don’t wanna!”
Yeah, but you gotta, don’t you?
Novels don’t write themselves, either. That great story that’s been brewing in your mind since you were twelve – nobody else is going to write it, are they?
But what about my favorite show coming on in ten minutes? What about that cool video game I just bought? What about a walk in the park on this great sunny day? What about …
Life is full of distractions. What you do with your time shows what you really value. Want to write a book? Or just want to pay off your taxes and then go to bed? Then do it. Don’t wait for the perfect moment. Those moments are rare and usually exaggerated by the now-successful author when he pens his autobiography. Hindsight makes everything look easy. There’s a direct correlation between effort put in and results achieved.
So it all comes down to this: Sit down, shut up, and do the work.
Enjoy what you’re reading? Subscribe by email for updates on new posts and follow my writing career, musings on fiction and storytelling, and reflections about life in general.
Jake W. Powell 