On my better days, their derisions breeze over me like warm wind. On worse days, they wound like arrows through my heart. For I am a professional crastinator. I’ve rarely found advantage taking the early lead. I need and benefit from an essential milling around period first. I might not be the first one out of the blocks, but I’ll start well-rested, refreshed, and focused. I figure my competitive advantage comes from deep background understanding that enables me to first head off in the right direction rather than simply heading out first.

If tomorrow’s too late, this morning’s way too early. I hasten excruciatingly slowly at first. The Speedies say I’m procrastinating, but I’m not. I’m professionally crastinating.

I’ve spent plenty of stuck time wearing labels others decided to pin on me. Nobody knows enough to label another, though I’m the first in line to forget to remember that line. Us ruminators seem like easy prey only because we are. The hasties rarely even hear what we mumble in derision as they zoom past; don’t hear and don’t seem to care, they’re up to velocity already.

Crastinators can’t seem to measure progress by the rustle of wind through our hair. We sense it by the electric charge accumulating behind our brows. We thrive on the occasional a-ha! rather than steady, step-wise progress. We work like capacitors, storing up our thoughts to the point of quantum discharge. We’re well on our way when we’re still sitting still.

The runners in life must think the ruminators stuck. Ruminators consider the treadmill crowd stuck in motion. It’s not for the other to determine for another. Before I understood that crastination could be a professional designation, I, too, thought I was probably just unproductively procrastinating.

I’m leery of anyone dedicated to reforming anyone out of who they are.

©2012 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: Unstuck Stuck Consulting