Family week!

It's been a crazy week. Last weekend, I flew down to Utah to join my family in celebrating my Grandma's 80th birthday. It was kind of a crazy trip. I hadn't intended to go, as I had some other obligations scheduled for that weekend. However, those got moved until the next weekend. I did have to get back for an appointment on Sunday, so after a lot of deliberation, I decided to fly instead of driving down with Lori and the kids. It was a pretty crazy flight schedule. Interestingly enough, It was cheaper for me to fly if I bought a package that included 2 nights in a hotel in Salt Lake City. My flight back was at 6:00 am, so I needed a 4 am wakeup call. Pretty crazy. Anyway, the party was great. We had a family dinner for Grandma at noon on Saturday, and then began an open house at 3. She had quite a surprise. I think she knew about the party, but she didn't expect me to be there. Even more, my uncle Don, who lives in Hawaii, flew over to be there, and my aunt Ronella and her husband Clay made it as well. Grandma was moved to tears, and the look of joy on her face as she saw Don and Ronella was precious. All of her children were there for the party, and a large number of her grandchildren also. We took a number of family photos, then had a nice lunch. Most of the family pitched in, either cooking, or decorating the church cultural hall. My mom and siter-in-law did the table decorations. The center piece was a vase of Grandma's favorite flowers, and photos from early in Grandma's marraige. During lunch, my uncles and aunts did a little program. Each of them talked about things they remembered about Grandma as they grew up. They recorded the stories, so hopefully they'll digitize the audio and share it around with the rest of the family.

After the lunch, an open house was held at the church. I think it went very well. It wasn't so busy that Grandma felt overwhelmed. Several distant relatives came to visit, as well as some of Grandma's neighbors over the years. It was good to see so much of my family. I've missed the family reunions over the last several years, so it's been quite a while since I have seen many of these people. All in all, it was a very satisfying trip. On the way back, I again had a short layover in Denver. While there, I ran into a family that goes to our church, and sat next to them on the flight. It was a pleasant surprise, and a lot of fun.

My birthday also happened this week. Lori totally surprised me. I thought she had forgotten. I wasn't really all that concerned about that. We really didn't have anything planned, at least as far as I knew. I teach at WSU on that day, and Lori had called me earlier that day to tell me that she had a meeting at 7:00 that night, so I told her I'd meet her at Sierra's gymnastics so that she could attend the meeting. When I arrived, Lori took me out of the gym and told me of her plans. She had a friend taking Sierra home from gymnastics, and a babysitter at home for the other two girls, and we had a few hours for a dinner date. It was a lot of fun.

Anyway, that's all that's happened this week :)

Procrastination

So, I mentioned in a (much) earlier post that I had purchased a book on procrastination called "The Now Habit," and that I'd be posting my thoughts on it periodically as I read it. Well, I procrastinated reading the book on procrastination, and so I've only recently spent some time in the book. I'm nearly halfway through it at this point, but already I think it's having an impact.

One area the book discusses is the procrastinators internal dialog. You see, procrastination is actually a defense mechanism (and an extremely effective one at that). According to the author, people don't procrastinate because they are lazy (I'm not sure I agree with that assessment totally), the procrastinate to avoid something that is painful or undesirable. It could be that the person is a perfectionist, and is afraid that they will produce something that is not totally perfect. However, if they procrastinate, they could say that the reason that their work wasn't perfect is because they didn't give themselves enough time to complete the task. If they'd only started earlier, the project would have been perfect. That way, they can keep their sense of self worth intact. He also points out that people can be afraid of success. Yeah, I did a double take on that one myself, but after reading what the author means by that, I can actually relate to that one. Being afraid of success means that you fear what comes after success. Not the recognition, but the assignments that may come your way after you are successful or that if you are successful, there might be less work for you to do. The procrastinators internal dialog can give a lot of insight into what motivates the procrastinator to, well, procrastinate. Phrases like "I should do this," or "I need to do this," are attempts by the procrastinator to will themselves into action, but usually have the opposite effect. By saying that you "should" be some way, you are comparing the imperfect now with a perfect vision of now. Finding yourself lacking can be depressing, leading to even less motivation to improve. Saying that you "need" do something sets you at odds with some authority figure. You are being forced to do something that, given the choice, you wouldn't be doing. This allows you to play the victim, and by procrastinating, you are "sticking it to the man" to some degree. Though I haven't made many changes to my internal dialog, the book has made me far more aware of how I talk to myself with regards to tasks and assignments.

The author also points out that procrastination is very successful as a defense mechanism. That's why people use it. Procrastination almost immediately relieves stress (though it piles it on later!), and often, if one procrastinates long enough, someone else may step in and do the job that they were supposed to do. This reminds me of the Demotivator poster on procrastination "Hard work pays off over time, but laziness always pays off right now."