Don’t think; just do.
A couple months ago I came across a magazine called The Week Junior. It’s magazine for 8-14 year olds and covers current events across the world in science, politics, and entertainment. I immediately thought about my eldest daughter (7), who loves reading and learning about the world. A subscription to this magazine seemed like a perfect fit for her, and I thought it would be a great birthday gift.
I discussed it with my wife and she agreed that it seemed like an excellent gift. But her birthday wasn’t for another month and a half, so I didn’t get a subscription. I’d keep the idea in the back of my mind and weigh it against other options as her birthday got closer.
When we were about two weeks away from her birthday I decided to go for it. I signed up for a subscription and paid the annual fee. And then I saw a message in the fine print:
Please allow 2-4 weeks for your first issue to arrive.
I had waited too long. I wouldn’t be able to give her an issue on her birthday. Luckily I was able to get a digital sample on her iPad, so I at least had something to show her on her birthday. But it wasn’t ideal.
I did something similar with a gift for my parents this Christmas season. My wife and I were at a conference for parents of deafblind children and the keynote speaker was Eric Dowdle, a local artist who paints scenes of cities that are often used for jigsaw puzzles. After the conference I looked up some puzzles and found a puzzle of a location that’s meaningful to my parents. I thought it’d be a great Christmas gift, but once again I waited for a better idea to come along.
Then when Christmas was fast approaching I returned to the website to order the puzzle and saw that nearly all the puzzles on the site had sold out, including the one I wanted to give to my parents.
After these experiences I told my wife that I’m no longer going to second-guess myself when I get gift ideas. I’m not going to let the ideas marinate for weeks just in case a better idea comes along. I’m going to act right away.
Overthinking: my Achilles’ heel
This story is a perfect example of how I overthink everything in my life. It’s rooted in perfectionism. I want to do everything the best way possible, so I hesitate to make any decisions at all. Because what if I make the wrong decision? What if I could have gathered more information that would have helped me make the right choice?
It affects every aspect of my life:
- Choosing books to read. I’ll often spend hours reading Good Reads and Amazon reviews of different books, only to not make a decision at all. No wonder I only read 3-5 books a year while others read 100+.
- Choosing movies to watch. I don’t get many chances to watch a movie, so I better make sure it’s worth my time. May as well spend 45 minutes watching movie trailers rather than watching an actual movie.
- Deciding which chores to do. I’m regularly overwhelmed with my list of chores to do: organize the garage, catch up on laundry, install the ceiling fan. I’ll spend 20 minutes trying to figure out which chore would be most impactful for me and my family.
- Applying principles to my life. I’ve observed that whenever I learn about a new principle, be it from Buddhism or really anything in life, I feel a need to literally read an entire book about the principle before I can apply it to my life. It’s ironic, because I’ll learn the principle from my own experience, but I feel like I can’t make use of it until I spend weeks reading about someone else’s take on it.
- Getting better at Halo. I play Halo with my brother and friend online every week or two. I really enjoy bonding with them and the feeling of improving my skills. But I don’t get many chances to play. So rather than actually playing, I spend bits of free time watching tips and tricks videos and pro players stream. And then I rarely actually play. And when I decide on an aspect to work on, I have to make it this big thing where I tell my buddies all about it.
- Writing this blog. I’ve learned that I really enjoy writing, and I don’t know all the reasons why. But I’m really good at convincing myself not to write. I imagine all the people that might read my posts, and how the writing might not be tailored to them, or offend them, when in reality very few people are going to even see the posts. This is especially true with writing about my faith journey. I’ve attempted to write about it for years now, and have never posted anything.
My new resolve: “Don’t think, just do.”
Apparently this phrase is attributed to the Roman poet Horace; that’s all I really know about it. But I must have heard it at some point in my past, because it came to mind as I reflected about these missed gift debacles.
So I’ve decided that my resolve for 2025 is going to be “Don’t think; just do.”