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“Why Can’t You Just Deal with It?” By Joshua Rothman Often, it’s our most obviously necessary #tasks that feel the most impossible. “You have something important to do—something vital. It’s not an item on a list but a burdensome project, urgent and complicated. Your home office must be transformed into a nursery for a baby due next month. Your late father’s house must be sold to pay for your daughter’s college education. You’ve owed your boss a report for a year, and with each passing week it grows more difficult to complete. You have to file this year’s taxes, and last year’s, and the documents you need are lost in your spare room, in nondescript envelopes you’ve never opened. Why can’t you just deal with it? It’s a question you can ask yourself in bed at night, or in the mirror the next morning. Procrastination is one thing: we’ve all put off writing thank-you notes or responding to e-mails and survived with our dignity intact. Not dealing with it is different. It’s what we experience when a lot is being asked of us and we’re not rising to the occasion. […] when a problem needs to be dealt with, it’s almost as though it’s an individual, too. Ultimately, dealing with difficult things requires getting to know them. It can be hard to really wrap yourself around a quirky and recalcitrant problem; it’s a little like hugging in winter, when people wear big coats and seem to have a lot in their pockets. You often have to contort yourself into an awkward embrace. And embracing something briefly won’t help you really deal with it; you have to stay there, settling in. You need nuance, persistence, flexibility, firmness, attention to detail—almost a love of the problem. You’ll have to become old friends before you can say goodbye.” By Joshua Rothman https://lnkd.in/evt-uxZf #happynewyear #2025 #newyear #productivity #problems #goal #goals #connectgoals #resolutions

Why Can’t You Just Deal with It?

Why Can’t You Just Deal with It?

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