— Deadlines are motivating. Whether it’s finalizing federal crop insurance before March 15, tax preparation before April 15, or completing the honey-do list before a graduation open house, deadlines inspire us to “Get-R-Done” as comedian Larry the Cable Guy touts.
Deadlines can also drive a seemingly sane person out of his mind. Sadly, I speak from personal experience. Whether it’s the writing that’s due for my work or this monthly column for The Land it’s an extreme-reality pressure that intensifies when merged with procrastination.
Procrastination is nothing new and is certainly widespread. This week when Mike and I were calling it a night, youngest daughter Melanie, a high school sophomore, was just warming up at the computer, working on a paper that was due the next day. “Will you correct this for me?” she asked.
“In the morning,” I promised. Within a half-hour of her leaving for school, I read her paper about perseverance. It included goals she could set for increased success at school. She wrote, “I can set goals to study earlier in the day instead of late at night. I can also make sure to study in a place with the fewest distractions.” I laughed. Ironically, she wrote those words after the 10 o’clock news while watching TV.
The next evening when she headed to the television to do her homework, I reminded her of what she had penned about doing homework earlier in the day in a room with minimal noise. “Mom, I said I could do those things, I didn’t say when.” I guess even goals about not procrastinating can be procrastinated.
Mignon McLaughlin wrote, “Don’t fool yourself that important things can be put off ’til tomorrow; they can be put off forever, or not at all.” The costliest things to procrastinate have nothing to do with English teachers, the Internal Revenue Service or magazine editors. The most dangerous things to put off until tomorrow is saying, “I’m sorry,” “Will you forgive me?” and “I love you.”
A Bible verse that I remember my dad telling my sister and I after a feud we had when we were kids is this: “Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry” (Ephesians 4:26).
Countless pastors have shared that wisdom with engaged couples in pre-marital counseling, and later to those on the threshold of divorce who failed to abide by its truth. Family reunions, small-town communities, and even the church would be much healthier and whole if reconciliation weren’t continually postponed until tomorrow.
Although it’s not on the calendar until after the fact, whether you’re a student, in the workforce or retired, we all share an ultimate deadline — the day we breathe our last. In Phil Callaway’s book “Making Life Rich Without Any Money; Stories of Finding Joy in What Really Matters,” he shared humorous epitaphs that are chiseled in tombstones of those who met life’s final deadline. Here are a few:
“See? I told you I was sick!”
“I was afraid this would happen.”
“Here lies Ezekial Aikle, age 102. The good die young.”
“An English lawyer by the name of John Strange had this pun etched on his headstone: ‘Here lies an honest lawyer, and that is Strange.’”
The Chicago office of advertising agency Foote, Cone & Belding created this memorable slogan for Tombstone pizza, “What do you want on your Tombstone?” It’s a question that goes perpetually beyond your preference for sausage or pepperoni. It’s an inquiry about how you want to best be remembered.
We’re only fooling ourselves if we think we can procrastinate answering that question until we’re working on our pre-arranged funeral plans. Epitaphs may be etched in granite after our death, but make no mistake, we’re writing them today.
What do you want on your tombstone?
As for me, I’m partial to popular songwriter Gloria Gaither’s response when she was asked how she wanted to be remembered. She said, “If I had to write my epitaph, it would probably say, ‘She gave herself away for the things that last forever.’”
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Lenae Bulthuis is a wife, mom and friend who muses from her back porch on a Minnesota grain and livestock farm.
