Why does it take external forcing mechanisms to make us do stuff we should already be doing?  I’m talking about things like cleaning your house - just before the cleaning lady comes, starting a crash fitness program - just before your 30-year high-school reunion (YIKES!), and taking your two best suits to the dry cleaner - the day before your big job interview.  Is it just me?  And if I never had these external forcing mechanisms would my house ever get clean?

I wonder what would happen if I just left the house just as it is and let the cleaning lady come anyway, or went to the high-school reunion (which is four weeks away I’m galled to report) wearing my excess 20-pounds, or went to the big job interview in one of my other suits?  Would my life be forever scarred?  Maybe I’m just addicted to the drama (see He’s Just Not That Into You for the reference), or chronically lazy (NOT!).  Or maybe - just maybe - on a regular day-in-the-life, I have other (read: more pressing) stuff to do.  On regular days I work out for an hour, work and network for 10, and try to feed just a smidgeon of my intellectual, creative, and social bones.  If that’s my real life (which it is), maybe I just need to get over some deep-brain story that I need to do crazy stuff - like clean before the cleaning lady comes, or worry that my friends from high school (now also 30-years older), might even have a clue what I looked like 30-years ago, or be prepared to say to FU to any employer who has more interest in my suit than in my results.

This is, after all, the real world.  It’s my real world, and it is replete with dog hair on the rugs, a daily does of (low-cal, low-fat) ice cream, and my dry cleaning in the trunk of my car (where it belongs and I can find it).  Get over it people - I’ve got a life to live!