Procrastination

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!' --Frederick Goethe

It has just this morning come to my attention that a certain penchant for procrastination has begun to overtake my person. This comes as somewhat of a surprise, for I have not been given to procrastinating in the past, to the best of my recollection.

Nonetheless, what I have noted is the existence of a growing backlog of intentions, a catalogue of things I am going to do when such and such a time arrives. When, for instance, I feel better; when my brain is working better; when I'm over my head cold; when the Swallows come back to Capistrano.

I track myself, elusive as I am, according to trails of yellow sticky notes, scribblings on the calendar, shy little jots and tittles on page corners and on napkins. These notes pertain either to things I am going to write or things I am going to learn. One hopes that the former will precede the latter (but of course hope, in the final analysis, is no more than a four letter word--five if you add the s).

The irony in the very existence of these notes is that the depth of the matter about which they intend to be a reminder will have long since fled recollection by the time they are viewed again. So it happens that procrastination leads to a void. There is no better advice for the post MS person than Goethe's, as presented above.