Thanks must go to s william for mentioning this often-used excuse in his comments on last week's excuse:

"Waiting for the perfect time."

I know the perfect cure for that one: sell your book or article. That way you'll have a firm deadline to aim for, one that will haunt your every waking hour as you struggle through the dangling participles, piles of laundry and extra Halloween treats.

But what if you're not waiting to pen the Great Novel or Essential Essay? What if, heaven of heavens, you're doing what I'm doing way too much of: waiting for the perfect time to call someone I haven't spoken to in ages.

Friends. Family. Bill collectors. Mafia henchmen. Yeah, there's a ton of people I should be having more conversations with. And not because I have to, but because I want to. Well, except for the repo guys and Mafiosos.

I should call or write or visit, but I wait for that elusive "perfect time." Life gets way too busy, and the next thing you know another month goes by, then another, and then their kids have received Masters degrees -- and the last time you saw any of them they were in diapers.

Maybe the perfect time is right now. Well, maybe not right now since it's one in the morning and people might get all cranky if I called them at this very moment. But there were the days when calling a girlfriend in the wee hours wasn't that crazy an idea -- unless they were still living at home or had an evil morning shift.

Back then all my friends were creatures of the night. Or at least they faked it real well.

Again, as Nienke mentioned, this could be those evil priorities at work again. Sheesh, with all this stuff working against us, how does anyone get stuff done?

What has you waiting for the "perfect time"?

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