Procrastination

One week later, my e-mail is down to 205, a net reduction of 25. 

The part about the mail backlog was really just context for why I was looking at those particular passages. As I wrote about it, and about making peace with the levels and means of connection, it felt like there was more there, and more that was relevant.

One source accounts for most of the backlog,the Indian Country Today newsletter. The oldest message is from July 6th, 2021, and there are generally two to three messages a week. 

It was easy to procrastinate reading them. I am usually rushed. That particular oldest message comes from a time when I was applying for jobs, getting hired, training... I mean, it makes sense if that's where I started losing track.

It's not all them; I recently went through all of my old Southern Poverty Law Center updates. The reason I did not finish them at the time I got them was because they usually linked to new reports or studies with more reading, and I wanted to give those adequate time. I now tend to think that just skimming would have been fine, and better than reading so much later.

In the things that I am working with now Marie Kondo has been a great help, but we are not completely aligned on saving things for later. She says that in general if you don't read something when you get it, then you are not going to, or possibly that if it is for a later time, it will reappear. 

I think that is true for a lot of people, but with my stubborn wish to know and understand everything, I will make myself get to things, and often I will enjoy it then.

Being able to let things go is a part of this process, and I will spend more time on that. 

This post is more about my tendency to dread things, and then delay them.

Catching up on these letters has been good. I have learned a lot. I am working backwards, so sometimes it is interesting seeing the earlier context, sometimes I don't need it, and sometimes it is more frustrating.

For example, I just read an article about protests on the refusal to search two landfills. This was from February, and I was still reading about the landfill issue in August. As far as I know, there is still no search. That is only one part of the overall Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women issue.

As that backlog was growing (it did briefly top 500), I did keep thinking that maybe there wasn't even a point in going back; that I should just commit to moving forward. I couldn't feel right about that.

I did start making a point of reading the new updates on the day they came in. That may have helped take away some of the apprehension about getting to the old ones. It was possible to keep up; it could be possible to catch up.

I had made a few attempts here and there, but they didn't stick.

As Native American Heritage Month was approaching, I started reading one message per day in October, then two per day in November, working backwards one month at a time. If in the process I encounter another old e-mail that I know is part of a trend (like SPLC), I go through those.

It isn't trying to do too much, and it is doing something.

Procrastination can have some ridiculous hangups behind it, that are not easily overcome. Once you start getting past it, though, it can be very gratifying, and make other obstacles appear smaller.

Looking forward to the pockets of permaculture and guitar messages!