The Mystery of Procrastination

Why do we procrastinate? I mean, seriously...why did I sit on the couch playing computer solitaire for 45 minutes tonight instead of figuring out what the hell I am going to do about my Christmas cards? I need to write a Christmas letter, I need to see if I even HAVE cards to send out (which I probably do in one of the many remaining boxes of Christmas decorations still sitting out in the garage that I have not gone through and put out into the house...another thing I need to do sometime really soon), I need to make a list of addresses of who we are sending cards to, I need to figure out if we are hand writing envelopes or just printing labels in a pretty, looks-like-hand-writing font, seriously, there is a lot to do. But NO, I chose to sit and play solitaire...because that REALLY accomplished something. OK, maybe I didn't want to figure out Christmas cards, I could also have begun to deal with the Mount Everest of dirty laundry that Jack so thoughtfully hurled over the balcony from our bedroom yesterday to the hallway as a subtle hint that maybe we might want to start doing laundry. But instead I just kick it closer to the wall whenever I walk by it. Maybe no one will notice...it might blend into the wall and no one will see it...what do you think? Yeah, I know, probably not so much. I also could have wrapped the large pile of unwrapped presents that is accumulating in the exact same hallway (yes it is getting crowded in that hallway). The wrapping paper is even all piled neatly on top of the gifts, so there is no handy excuse like "I don't have any wrapping paper yet"...nope, it's there. And we have tape and scissors too...I just need to do it. There really is no good excuse, except that I would rather f*&%-off and sit on my a$# and do nothing even remotely productive than do any of that stuff that desperately needs to get done. Why on earth is that? It makes no sense to me. I feel such a wonderful sense of accomplishment when I DO do those things on my list that I tend to avoid. So you would think I would enjoy doing them to get to that wonderful feeling that comes afterward. Also, they are almost always not nearly as hard as I am thinking they will be in my head, you would think eventually I would learn. But for some reason that never seems to happen. This seems to be one of the great mysteries of the world (at least of my life anyway).

I wonder if I like having those "to-do's" in front of me...something looming that still needs to be done. Maybe if they aren't there in front of me I will be bored. Because if I am doing nothing when I know I should be doing something then I am choosing to do nothing, but if I am doing nothing because I have nothing to do then I am bored. Man....that is deep.