#13: Avoidance – has a cost. Like avoiding reading this post.

The other night, you spent 27 minutes* bitching about having to brush your teeth. There was cajoling and threatening, and you finally – grumpily – took 60 seconds to brush your teeth. While not the 2 minutes we prefer,  we took it as a victory.

We informed you that it took much longer for you to grumble and wail and rant about the actual task than it took actually doing it. At your tender age, wouldn’t it be a good idea to learn from this and just listen next time?

Hrm.

The last two weeks, I had a particular task on my to-do list that seemed to roll over from one day to the next. I so didn’t want to do it. I’d get to it in the list and I’d say, “Hrm, maybe later.” And the resistance to it grew. And grew. And grew. There was a day last week that I was done the rest of my list fairly early in the day and I had ONE thing to do – this task – so I made up OTHER work to do before even thinking about doing it.

Finally, today, I just did it.

I look back at all the energy I spent contorting myself in byzantine ways to avoid said task. Now that I’ve done it, I can’t even tell you why I avoided as much as I did. It wasn’t particularly painful or difficult. If anything, it was a little fun.

As a child, I remember kvetching about having to do something for your grandparents. Finally your dadi said to me (in gujarati), “Just shut your eyes and drink it.” That’s obviously something I need to say to myself more often.

I guess I’m not so far evolved either. Do as I say, child, not as I do!

(Oh, that task on my todo list? This post.  Started 7/15/2017, finished 8/2/2017. Total actual time doing it across the weeks? 14 minutes.)

 

 

*: I might be exaggerating. Hyperbole isn’t unknown in our household. Blame your mother.