I wish I had the perfect todo app. One where I would think anything and it would appear in my calendar at exactly the perfect time to get that done and a couple of reminders at exactly the perfect moment to get me in the zone for what I have to do.
I can picture a version of me that flows between all the tasks I have to do and completes them one by one. It’s what I think I want.
The reality is that this would not help in any meaningful way, and when unobtanium doesn’t help there are much bigger issues that you have to deal with upstream.
I feel like this is an almost universal human experience. You know you have to send a single email that takes maybe five minutes of your time but it’s almost impossible to get you to sit down and do it. There are always more pressing issues and there’s a dread you feel when thinking of actually doing the task.
Lately I have been thinking of when, fresh into my teenage years I was spending the summer in Senegal’s olympic pool. Going up the ladder with my cousin to look at him jump from far too high for me and spending some seconds there on the diving board, dreading the embarrassment of going back down the ladder. This time he pushed me in the pool, so I dived. I alone would have never jumped but there I was. The way down felt way too short and I felt like I wasted all the time I spent looking at the people diving rather than doing it myself.
I often think of this when I have a simple task I cannot bring myself to do.
By the way, I never told my cousin how much his little prank impacted me during the years but that’s the way life is.
You just have to push and jump. The rest will come. There is no mountain beyond the dune.
