i have to be honest with myself if i'm going to do this self exploration thing the right way - i've become a procrastinator. i know this because i'm reading the Tomorrow Trap: Unlocking the Secrets of the Procrastination-Protection Syndrome, by Karen E. Peterson.

i first read about the book in the editors column in a give away magazine at the doctors. the sentence, "The simple truth is procrastination leads to under achievement.." caught my attention. i don't consider myself an underachiever, but if i really look at my life i see that 3 unsuccessful businesses and a sizable string of incomplete career goals might indicate i have this itty bitty problem. So i got the book out of the library, and yup, right there in the first chapter there i am.

just an aside, (and to give me a break), Google has a neat feature that i'd never seen before until i tried to buy the Tomorrow Trap book, which unfortunately is out of print. if you type in a book title, most likely if you look down the link list, you will see it listed in Google and can read a sizable amount of text from the book as well as go to the online store links for amazon, barns & noble etc. it's very cool, way better than the thing on amazon.

so procrastinating come to find out, is a lot more than just not taking out the garbage or paying the light bill, according to Peterson, it's really about underlying shame stemming from the first few years of our lives, no matter what our upbringing. if you are a procrastinator you may fall into one of three categories from low to high intensity. i'm moving into the middle catagory pretty quickly. Peterson says, "Regardless of our level of procrastination, it's much easier to be ashamed about being late than it is to feel ashamed about finishing the task or making a decision, only to be told we've performed poorly." for me that's true. it's a dammed if you do and dammed if you don't thing. i don't work on fixing my web site because why bother no one goes to it anyway and i'm ashamed thinking that, but if i don't fix it, i don't have to be ashamed that no one looks at it. i think that's right...

before you get too depressed, know, according to Peterson, that shame is universal and part of the human condition, and it's often unconscious. that makes me feel better, because the last thing i would have said about myself was that i felt ashamed, angry/resentful/taken advantage of...but never shame.