Our local supermarket is only a few minutes walk but I didn’t want to go. As I was putting on my shoes, I began talking myself into it. In my head I was saying things like, “it’s no big deal it will only take a couple of minutes. I may as well go now I have to anyway.”

Then I stopped.

I decided for some reason to ignore my rational mind and go with how I was feeling. I took off my coat and shoes and decided that I would wait until later.

After dinner I felt ready to go to the store. As I was paying for my groceries a lady returned to the checkout counter and said she couldn’t find her ring and was wondering if perhaps it had slipped off when she was packing her bags. We looked, there was no sign of it. I decided I would retrace her steps out of the store and something in me told me I was going to find that ring. As I approached the sliding doors of the store, they opened, I gazed down and there in the gap was the ring.

If I didn’t procrastinate about going out and getting those groceries, I would not have been there to help that woman find her ring. Typically, we view procrastination as a negative state. There is something we feel we “should” do but keep putting it off for one reason or another. The bible says to everything there is a time and a season. Note the word everything. So this applies not just to the big decisions in life but to the small everyday little things too.

We may give more time to pondering the bigger decisions such as should I leave my job now or wait a few years? Do we buy a house now or later? In the smaller things we think it doesn’t matter as much. Do I wash this cup now or leave it in the sink until morning? On the surface it may not seem like a big deal but there is an order to things in life which we can’t understand. This timing comes to us in the form of gut feelings that often defy our logic.

I no longer judge myself as lazy or burying my head in the sand when there is something to do and I don’t want to do it. I wait. Then I always find an impulse arrives, an energy to get the task done. It may be an hour later or a day later but it does come. When that green light arrives the task no longer feels arduous.

So, be brave. The next time you really don’t want to do something, wait for the green light and see what happens!

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Clare Gately

Clare is an Interfaith Minister living in Edinburgh Scotland. She is passionate about how we, as human beings can reach our potential on all levels. She is particularly interested in encouraging women to reach their potential and published her first book on that theme last year. Originally from Ireland Clare loves nature and enjoys exploring the Highlands and Lowlands of Scotland.

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