Do The Thing Today
A cardboard box sits in the hall with a lamp balanced on top. You set it there while you were waiting for the closet shelf to be fixed. The lamp stays off the floor, and at least you can still open the door, right? A few days pass, and you learn to walk around the box. You stop seeing the box, the lamp, and it all just becomes a part of the atmosphere. You slapped a patch on your life, and you get used to the detour.
When I was 15 years old, I spent a lot of time with my grandparents. They were the most consistent source of stability in my life, and they gave me unconditional love. Sometimes they would ask me to do something, and if I didn’t do it for them immediately… well, I would forget about it and not do it at all. My grandma was always saying, “Hey, not right this minute, but can you do… x, y, or z?”
I started doing things as soon as I was asked so that I could be the type of person who doesn’t let things fall through the cracks. This practice helps me keep my life in order. I’m not perfect, and that isn’t the point. Sometimes I let the dishes stack up. Sometimes I don’t want to take out the trash.
Know what I really don’t want, though?
I don’t want bugs in my apartment, and I don’t want a stinky kitchen.
“We’ll handle it later” protects the moment, but then work just builds up and life gets nasty. The word “later” has no date, task, or person attached. Life doesn’t wait while everyone adjusts, puts off the same small decision, and everything starts degrading.
We don’t need to solve every small problem immediately. Some things deserve a pause because we need help, time, or a better strategy. Things undone don’t become a burden until the only plan is to put it off another day.
You go through the things you tolerate.
Look at the thing you stepped around today. Are you tolerating things in your life? Take action! You can do it.
Ask for help, do one tiny piece of it, and start walking down that road. Cut yourself some slack… you do not have to climb a mountain ~ all you have to do is start climbing. Before you know it, you’ll be on top of the world and breathing in that fresh, fresh air. A named next move doesn’t finish the job or erase what you don’t know. It gives tomorrow a name instead of handing it a pile. That is enough for today. You don’t need a grand repair plan. You need a visible one. Give the patch its next move, then give the hall back its floor.