The Places We Go

It is funny the things we avoid and by avoid, I could mean procrastinate, obfuscate, and eschew. They are most often reasonably mundane activities, but ones that for whatever reason push our buttons or cause us upset or anxiety.

Perhaps it is that they are just so boring we do not want to do them. This can include filing, cleaning, making telephone calls or paying bills.

They could be scary or things that we believe we will mishandle or “get wrong.” We attribute “scary closet monster” to agencies and people outside of ourselves. Maybe they are scary closet monsters but that does not change the need to interact with them and to reach resolution.

We wait because we do not know the outcome or fear the outcome. There may be good reason to do so, but it never changes the fact that we need to deal with life. So, we delay and during that delay we have the activity taking up very valuable real estate in our minds. They become the apps running in the background that use up our battery and deplete us. Some are so buried that we do not even remember them until they finally gather enough of our memory that if we do not clear it, we will crash. Our ignoring them can allow them to have the effect of the dark web and its nefarious deeds. At least on our psyches.

I have decided to make a list of all my “don’t want to’s” and then arrange them in some creative, and one hopes, useful order so that I may view my demons full on.  It is only in the unmasking of the closet monster that one can hope to attain mastery over oneself.

I think I will start with filing – that seems the least daunting. At best it will lead to a cleaner desk and at worse maybe a paper cut.