I’m famous for browsing without purchasing: picking up items from a store, walking around with them for the duration of my arc around the displays and then replacing each item one by one before I leave. I put down the spatula I don’t need, the pan I can’t afford and the candle that is on clearance but not the right color.
I talk myself out of it.
Maybe it’s a good thing when it comes to buying (or not buying) things from Williams Sonoma.
But sometimes I talk myself out of doing things I need to. Because right now I’m sitting in Starbucks and just hit “send” on an email that I didn’t want to send.
I needed to address something that had happened that had hurt me. And I didn’t really make a big deal. I just sent a simple email that explained my hurt (not anger), and my confusion (not bitterness). If the person had been in my circle of immediate reach I would have asked them to have coffee.
But, being impossible to talk in person, I sent an email (one step above a text and two steps below a phone call). I hate the emotional distance that the written word (vs. the spoken word) can carry. My currency is the written word so I did the best I could.
I wrote from where I was.
Hurt, but not angry.
Confused but not bitter.
I even sent it to my husband for him to edit. And then I looked it over once again. I clicked send quickly before I could talk myself out of it.
But I did it.
It wasn’t about getting an apology or an explanation, or even about me feeling resolved. It was something that needed to be done and I was avoiding it. I jumped into it, I didn’t talk myself out of it and I did the hard thing. Because it would have been easy to let this roll into Internet oblivion and never address it.
[note that I often do NOT do the hard thing: I avoid doing the dishes and cleaning the playroom on a regular basis]
The side effects? I do feel a lot better. I got a very nice and apologetic email from the person. And I conquered a few mini fears: the someone-getting-mad-at-me fear and the what-will-this-person-think fear.
It was one little step on the road to began a habit of forcing myself to do a hard thing.
Maybe I should stop off on the way home and buy a spatula.
What are you talking yourself out of doing that you KNOW you need to do?
