Aunt Prissy asked her niece about an uncle on the other side of the girl’s family, and the child said “He’s very sick.” Aunt Prissy replied “Pshaw! He only thinks he’s sick!” The next week she inquired again about the uncle, and the girl responded “He thinks he’s dead.”
This was one of those weeks I was tempted to skip the blog. I’ve got a writing deadline to meet, and it would be so much easier to make my goal if I don’t use any of that time to throw something into the web that’s big enough to stick.
The problem is I also have a blog deadline. So now I’m faced with a rob Peter to pay Paul dilemma. Is one deadline really more important than the other? Will the universe collapse into chaos if I miss one or the other?
Well, you have the evidence before you: I posted the blog. Deadline is such an ominous sounding word. Yeah, in the medical field I understand not doing something on time might make you dead (otherwise known as flat line). But how many other goals are a matter of life and death?
Paying the bills on time does affect keeping a roof over your head and a meal in your belly, so that’s pretty important.
Getting a project done in the workplace on time can affect paying those bills, so that’s pretty important.
Putting food in front of hungry people who stare at you while brandishing sharpened knives and pointy forks sounds like a deadline to me….
The truth be told, if we didn’t have deadlines, we wouldn’t accomplish nearly so much as we do. When it’s a balmy day I know I’d have more fun running outside and playing with the grasshoppers. But I know if I do, the ants will bite me in the end (or would that be the toe if I don’t toe the line?).
Deadlines really are a sort of lifeline, but they’re stuck with a negative nomenclature because we don’t like them. Well, life is full of things we don’t like even though we benefit from them, like dirt, injections, and Klingons (wait, no, scratch that last one).
This looks big enough to stick. I’ll throw it now and get back to meeting that other deadline!
a. e. branson 
Good luck with your other deadline, too. I came to hate deadlines when I had a weekly newspaper to get to the presses. It’s one of the reasons I chose to pursue the self-publishing route. That being said, I do have self-imposed deadlines. I need them to help keep me on track to meet my self-imposed goals. It also protects me from the Procrastination Beast.
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Oh, yes, I think that Procrastination Beast probably looks a lot like a grasshopper! 🙂 Indeed, writing demands discipline, or we’d be drowning in unfinished works.
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