ISO 100 | 90mm | f 4.0 | 1/200 sec

How is it that some of the simplest tasks can become so complicated?  You would think that taking out the trash, washing the dishes, cleaning your room, and working on the essay that’s due tomorrow would be pretty straight-forward.  But for some reason this isn’t the case, things just never seem to work out the way they should.

The trouble is that when you go to take out the trash, you discover that you’re out of bags and you run down to the store to grab a new box.  While you’re there, you learn that your favorite clothing store is having a huge sale, so you rush over there and spend 2 hours trying on outfits and purchasing next summer’s apparel.  By the time you get home, a thick cloud of smoke greets you at the front door and you remember that you left tonight’s dinner in the oven.  Frantically you open all the doors and windows to get some fresh air circulating and set to work re-fixing dinner.  Meanwhile, the neighbor’s dog, two pesky squirrels, and a few stray birds seize this opportunity to make themselves at home, and you spend the rest of the evening ridding yourself of pesky, flea-infested varmints.  You crawl into bed that night thoroughly exhausted, and completely oblivious to that fact that you still haven’t taken out the garbage.  Yes, it would appear that some of the easiest jobs can be the most difficult and time-consuming (and sometimes impossible) to complete.

I could go on and on about how the dishwashing soap is never where it should be when it comes time to do the dishes, or how your favorite song that you always listen to while cleaning your room refuses to play in your audio player when you’re ready to re-organize your living space, or how the light bulb in your office lamp always seems to be burned out when you sit down to study.  All of these things and more seem to work together to turn simple tasks into long and complicated ordeals.

A lot of people panic when things don’t go the way they had planned, but I’ve come to expect the unexpected.  Now anytime I approach a task, I do a mental calculation to figure out the longest possible length of time it will take to accomplish the task (this calculation includes driving time, walking time, searching time, time spent thinking about how to accomplish the task, time spent thinking about starting the task, etc.).  Once this is done, I have a better feel for how much of my life (minutes, hours, days, years, etc.) will be devoted to the task, and provides me with ample information about how to proceed (or how to come up with an excuse to never get to it).

Nobody said life would be simple, and many of the tasks we have to accomplish in this life are challenging.  What counts is the attitude with which we approach each task and the effort we invest in each aspect of the job.  It may take 5 minutes, it may take 5 years, but regardless of the time-frame (and complexity of the whole thing), what matters is that you do your best and give it your all.  Because at the end of the day, nothing else matters (ok, that’s not totally true, but you catch my drift).  So grab a-hold of the job in front of you and go at it with tenacity, energy, and vigor (and be sure to pick up an extra box of lightbulbs next time you’re in town).