Putting Things Off

It occurred to me this morning how fraught it can be to put things off.  I did a bit of that yesterday.  I was compiling figures.  I felt like the end result but not the preparation.  Anything was more desirable.  Watching grass grow was more desirable.  The trouble for me though was, it was still there when I came back (I did not come back from watching the grass grow – something else that represented no more than a delaying tactic).  The only way it could be done was to get it done.
I reckon that saying something like that would have been lost on me once.  I scheduled stuff in for the next day, and it came, and I did it.  The trouble is different stuff happens unexpectedly.  To me it is always right and proper to schedule in stuff, but it seems to be no more than a presumption to assume something else may not happen – good stuff or bad stuff.  Good chance it will not, but the best I can do is be ready for any contingency.  I think it is not about expecting and fearing the worst, but expecting the best but being ready for the worst.
My schedule did not say Tuesday morning set up for table tennis, Tuesday afternoon tidy shed, Wednesday morning visit people, Wednesday afternoon have stroke.  Setting up, tidying and visiting are all to do stuff, but stroke does not feature anywhere.  It just happened.  I did not expect it, it was just there.
I was working on the garden one time and we think I was bitten by a spider.  The puncture marks on my skin, and my feeling “off” seem to indicate that anyway.  My plan was not “pull out weeds, trim trees, get bitten, rake up dead stuff.”  In the midst of what I was doing I got bitten.  It was not fatal.  At least I don’t think I am just here haunting you anyway.  It was not expected.  It just happened.
I guess that sort of thing has gotten more real to me as I have become older.  The thing is though, it is not an elderly thing.  Unforeseen things can happen anytime. Many times they are not life and death things (though they can be).  I have not met anyone who said, “I’m going to go out to have a car accident.”  They just happen.
I had a spreading thing on my leg.  It concerned me.  I saw the doctor.  It concerned him to, and I was sent to hospital.  Someone who knew about such things saw it and recommended a treatment and it went away.  Untreated it could have killed me.  Treated, it was no biggy.  That just happened.
The fact that it “just happens” is the way I feel about a lot of stuff.  I do not want my to do list to be like moving chairs on the Titanic.  I want my to do list to include the possibility of the Titanic sinking.