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Delay’s Inscrutable Ways
The difference between hesitation and doubt
I have been exercising daily for over a couple of years now. It is intensive exercise over a short period, meant to keep one in decent shape while not taking much time. However, I noticed the 10-minute routine would inevitably last more than an hour. Absurdly, I seemed to spend half an hour warming up, and another twenty minutes winding down and hydrating before jumping in the shower. Why did I delay getting on with it for so long? The answer came easily: the work is intense, and the warm-up is mostly mental preparation for those ten minutes of hell.
Since then, I set a 5-minute timer and then start exercising regardless of how ready I feel. Like jumping into less-than-warm water, the worst part is the initial plunge. Once we’re in, we know what we’re supposed to do. For the post-exercise issue, I don’t allow myself to drink water until I’m done showering — boy, do I make the showers quick these days. Thus, a little trick of the mind solves years of natural and understandable inefficiency.
We tend to delay the inevitable more than we care to admit. Even after making impossible decisions, we hold acting for no apparent reason. We conclude that we will quit our job, but it might take years to hand in our notice. We realise we shouldn’t be around a person, but we keep them close…