Preparation or Procrastination?

"You DO know what to do." Louise L. Hay

I was not one of those "because I said so" kind of parents. I tried not to be a dictator. One of my sons went through a stage where he would say, "I don't understand." I would tell him no and explain why he couldn't do something. Then he would say, "I don't understand." He did indeed understand. He just didn't like my answer.

There is an adult version of this. It's called, "I don't know what to do." Now there is absolutely a time in the decision making process where you truly don't know what to do. You are still evaluating and weighing options. You are still making your list of pros and cons. There are still a few loose ends you need to tie up. This is necessary. But it could be that we let it go on too long and preparation turns into procrastination. We bore our friends with endless talk of our dilemma, we give ourselves a headache thinking and thinking and thinking about it. If you're like me, sometimes you know intuitively, immediately, what to do, but want to analyze and rationalize. We say, "I don't know what to do." But we do know what to do. We know exactly what we should do. We just don't want to do it. Yet. Or ever.

I don't really know why we lie to ourselves this way. Maybe it's because if we would admit that we know precisely what it is we should do, the clock would then start ticking. And we couldn't keep putting it off indefinitely.

Susan