#370: Procrastination Causes Stress

"Procrastination is one of the most common and deadliest of diseases and its toll on success and happiness is heavy." Wayne Dyer

Why do we put things off instead of doing them right away and getting them over with? If you're like me, whenever something of importance is not done timely, I end up feeling stressed, often with the feeling of my chest being weighed down by bricks. Procrastinating interferes with my sleep, gives me headaches and causes unneeded worry. Does it have the same effect on you?

A good example was yesterday. I stopped on the way home at a gas station near the house after putting off gassing the car for two days. It was on empty. The pump refused my ATM card showing the message that the network was unavailable. I knew there was not enough gas in the car to get to a bank's ATM. I was so stressed by the thought of stalling on the way home I forgot the station had an ATM inside where I could have gotten cash, then gas.

All last night I was awake wondering if the system would be working today and if I could make it to the station without becoming stranded. I did get there okay but got the same network unavailable message. I thought to ask the clerk what the problem was. She said it must be the pump, ran my card through, got it approved and I was able to gas the car. On the way home I gave thanks and praise and remembered their ATM.

So then I wondered of all the opportunities I had foregone the past couple of days to stop and gas up the car. Why didn't I do it then?

I don't have an answer except that maybe I never expected things to go wrong. But remember Murphy's Law that if anything can go wrong it will at the most inopportune time?

That is so true when I put things off. From now on I will try to do things in their own time.

And if I delay again, I expect things to go wrong and the stress to build and the lack of sleep and the crushing feeling on the chest and the headaches for I will have deserved it.

How many times do we need to be burned before we get the message? For me, yesterday and today was one time too many.