Leaving the day lilies for another day

It looks like I'm behind again...

This year's day lilies are poking up through last year's day lilies -- y'know the limp, dead brown ones I'm told I should have cleaned up yesterday, or last fall. Oh well, it looks like the fresh green shoots are doing just fine, pushing their way well past the remnants of their predecessors. A couple of weeks growth and a bag or two of fresh mulch and I should be sporting a reasonably green thumb without so much as getting my fingers dirty.

Such, my friends, is the power of putting things off.

It's not the sort of thing folks are supposed to brag about. We're a culture that at least gives lip service to the "do it now, get'er done, don't sluff off" mantra of the smug go-getters we do so love to hate. Procrastination is tossed off as a term of approbation because we all know what  "habitual procrastinator" rhymes with.

But, on the other hand...

The Bible (and the Byrds) tell us there is a time and season for every purpose under heaven ... and that time isn't necessarily right now.

Yes indeed. What some folks put down as procrastination, I prefer to posit as patient prioritization -- perhaps more succinctly put as "Never do today what can be put off until tomorrow;" with the critical corollary, "If you can do without ever doing it, so much the better.

It’s helpful to think of it in terms of a nuclear option: When considering the urgency of a given task or course of action, the pertinent question to ask is – “If nuclear war breaks out tonight will I feel silly for spending my time on this?”

Look, there’s ample precedent for not getting your knickers in a knot when the end of day comes well ahead of the end of the “to do” list. Heck, the idea of spacing out tasks to fill the time available harks right back to Genesis itself – who doesn’t believe that the Almighty couldn’t have packed all of Creation into one or two really productive days? But no, he swanned out when evening came until morning followed, never once using all that brand new light to put in a bit of OT to knock off two or three more new universes while He was on a roll?

Lazy? Nah, I think He was just pacing Himself. When you’ve got all eternity to work with, what’s the rush?

Even more to the point, if you don’t have all eternity, why’s the rush?

Because there’s so much we have to do, or so I’m told. Still, I can’t help but notice that no matter how busy a person seems to be, the day after his funeral, the sun still rises and the tide comes in.  It would seem that otherwise smart folks would’ve found places to kick back and take it easy that offered a better view and more congenial company than a silk-lined box six-feet under.

That’s why I’m taken a bit aback to hear folks brag up their relative skill at multi-tasking – most generally involving undertakings of considerably greater sophistication than simultaneously walking and chewing gum. I’ve found taking on one task at a time to be great plenty and oft times an excess at that. Still, there’s a relentless push for us to constantly be doing more than we’re doing – as if beating downtown traffic while eating a burger, listening to an audio book and talking with the boss while waiting for tech support to get you off hold doesn’t quite make it as a sufficient moment’s activity.

Perhaps it’s time to stop to recall that after God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light, he called it a day … and took the first night off.

And said it was good.

Who are we to argue?