Deadlines

Few things have actual deadlines. That’s why flights and taxes cause such common ire. It’s so troublesome to corral human behavior into slots of time, so much so that we have created many escape routes. Excuses, extensions, the simple act of forgiveness, such things are the soft padding we bounce between on our way to actually completing the thing.

Self-imposed deadlines are unique in that they offer the potential for self-realization, though such an achievement is rare. The only thing worse is a deadline one hopes others will observe. There are few endeavors so fraught as the providing of a reasonable timeline. People will generally either do things now, because they want to, or never, because they don’t.

The best things in life, of course, have no deadlines: love, joy, laughter, the satisfaction of a job well done or time well spent. Those have no beginning, no end, only in between.