Still Life with Short Phalanges

Making a decision to do something is easy. Following through with that decision is my great challenge in life. I’m a master procrastinator, putting things off is as easy as deciding to do them. There’s always tomorrow. One more piece of chocolate won’t hurt. The bathtub can wait until Saturday. I don’t really feel like it right now. Excuses, excuses, excuses!

It’s a good thing I’m not typically like that at work. I get my job done most of the time. I also have the luxury of being able to delegate, so when I don’t feel like it, there’s always someone to assign it to. I do take pride in my work and like to know at the end of the day that there is nothing left over for tomorrow, because I never know what tomorrow will bring. I’m getting paid to do it as well and I think that if I was receiving a salary for life in general I might not be so quick to put things off. It’s a theory!

My intention for 2011 was to stop procrastinating. I think I’m batting around zero on that goal. Will power is not exactly my middle name and I blame my short first phalanges for it. In palmistry, long first phalanges denote a strong will. Mine are all somewhat stunted and dumpy compared to my second and third phalanges. So it makes me wonder… If I were to exert my will, would my first phalanges grow? And conversely… Am I condemned to being a victim of abbreviated digital sections forever? Will I spend much time contemplating these deep questions? Probably. Will it do any good? It’s doubtful.

Part of my problem is that I’m too impatient for results. I want to see immediate change and when I don’t I’m wont to make a new decision – often to give up and try something else. Maybe the new decision will be easier and produce a quicker effect. Results, tangible and significant, are good for the ego and confirm a sound decision in the first place. Now if only results started at the moment of resolution… Why, my abridged phalanges would hardly matter!

Alas and alack! Thought is merely the precursor to action. Without action the thought is merely an energetic outburst, not unlike the wasted time and energy put into a potato clock. While fascinating, not precisely of much value, particularly when the potato starts to rot!

I’ve been pondering success lately and every time I turn my mind to what success means, in hopes of finding a doable decision to make without taxing the length of my fingers, I am reminded of the Monty Python quote: Nothing succeeds like a budgie with no teeth. Suddenly I get a craving for sesame seeds or sunflower seeds and successful musings on the subject fly right out the window. As I suck the salt off the seeds, I wonder how it is that such silly things find their way into the memory bank in the first place and how they generate so much contemplative interest. In the end, it is never a prosperous train of thought. Though, I am finding some fascinating ways of making sesame and sunflower seeds more fun to eat. Sesame seed cookies, for example!

So, today I made a new decision. It is sublime in its simplicity. And it goes something like: I have decided to stop making decisions. I’m going to go with the flow. I’m going to just be and see where that leads me. I suspect that it will lead with direct precision to the couch, possibly with a bag of chips or a chocolate bar for flavor, and my knitting bag. I also suspect that before I finish writing this and get it posted that I will have made at least three more decisions. I will decide that before I hit the couch I will do at least thirty minutes of exercise. (I trust that the phalanges will take care of that decision.) I will decide not to stop at the store for chips or chocolate. (This stands a far better chance than the first decision.) And I will decide which knitting project to work on. (It’s one or the other, so if I’m going to knit, I have to decide. It can’t be helped.)

So much for not making decisions! There are no phalanges long enough to make that even kind of possible!

Thus, I have made one final decision (for now). I’m going to post this blog entry.