{"id":758,"date":"2014-07-20T20:06:57","date_gmt":"2014-07-21T00:06:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wcarss.ca\/log\/?p=758"},"modified":"2014-07-20T20:43:38","modified_gmt":"2014-07-21T00:43:38","slug":"late-half-baked-crap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wcarss.ca\/log\/2014\/07\/late-half-baked-crap\/","title":{"rendered":"Late, half-baked crap"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recently, I had a reminder that overall, a lot of\u00a0things just\u00a0don’t<\/em> get done.<\/p>\n

It’s rarely a conspicuous lack<\/strong> of a thing getting done that reminds me — instead, it’s the surprised, positive reaction from\u00a0people when things do<\/strong> get done. We simply\u00a0couldn’t muster such shock and joy if most things just… got finished.<\/p>\n

It’s easy to assume that other<\/em> people get stuff\u00a0done. Certainly people finish stuff\u00a0at work, do taxes, and\u00a0fill out medical forms. But outside that — keeping up with friends and colleagues, participating in clubs and sports, or working on side projects — it’s tough to\u00a0tell. You\u00a0see each of\u00a0your own failures, and mostly hear about other people’s successes. So it’s easy to imagine that you’re\u00a0worse than average at doing stuff<\/em>.<\/p>\n

But we all\u00a0<\/em>forget to send emails and to look things up. We all<\/em> fail to keep\u00a0in touch with friends who we meant\u00a0to stay connected with. It may\u00a0seem too late<\/strong> to send a greeting, or to finish something you said you’d get done.\u00a0It may seem like\u00a0you just haven’t done\u00a0enough<\/em> yet. At any rate, it would feel\u00a0embarrassing<\/em>\u00a0to send it now.<\/p>\n

Fortunately though,\u00a0these rare reminders\u00a0about how bad we all<\/em> are can teach us a powerful\u00a0lesson, which is that\u00a0late, half-baked crap is more\u00a0than people expect.<\/strong><\/p>\n

All you need to\u00a0do is beat the world’s low expectations<\/h2>\n

The easy way out of these situations is to not do anything<\/strong>. Just put it\u00a0down and don’t think about it. As long as it’s not work, taxes, or health stuff, the problem will usually\u00a0just go away<\/strong>. So that’s what most of us\u00a0do. Nothing. And that’s most of us\u00a0expect<\/em>, too. Nothing.<\/p>\n

But nothing is only what it looks<\/em> like. Most people actually\u00a0do<\/em>\u00a0get started. We do<\/em> take the first steps toward finishing stuff. Maybe just a bit\u00a0late, or something makes us\u00a0put it aside incomplete. Then life happens, time passes, and\u00a0embarrassment keeps us silent. So it looks<\/em> like nothing got done at all.<\/p>\n

So no one\u00a0expects anything <\/em>of you. Which is great\u00a0news!<\/p>\n

Because you probably have a pile of late,\u00a0half-baked crap<\/strong> lying around. Stuff you meant to do a long time ago, or that just needs a little more work. You occasionally remember it\u00a0and cringe, thinking it’s too late now<\/em>. False.<\/strong> It’s time to send it off — just apologise if you’ve gotta. Set aside the prideful embarrassment for a moment and think about this:<\/p>\n

They aren’t expecting anything from you — or anyone<\/h2>\n

If it’s so late that you feel embarrassed about sending it, the person has probably forgotten<\/em>\u00a0about it, or moved on. They’re not expecting anything now, so this is unexpected gravy. You\u00a0may just\u00a0make their day. They won’t be angry that you’re late, or didn’t do enough, they’ll be glad that you did something.<\/strong>\u00a0The vast majority of people can’t manage that. Your\u00a0late, half-baked crap may even\u00a0amaze them.<\/p>\n

No matter what, it’s better than nothing.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recently, I had a reminder that overall, a lot of\u00a0things just\u00a0don’t get done. It’s rarely a conspicuous lack of a thing getting done that reminds me — instead, it’s the surprised, positive reaction from\u00a0people when things do get done. We simply\u00a0couldn’t muster such shock and joy if most things just… got finished. It’s easy to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wcarss.ca\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wcarss.ca\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wcarss.ca\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wcarss.ca\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wcarss.ca\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=758"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/wcarss.ca\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":779,"href":"https:\/\/wcarss.ca\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758\/revisions\/779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wcarss.ca\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wcarss.ca\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wcarss.ca\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}