So, last night at a networking event, Lisa relayed that her young son had said to her younger son, “Decide: Is it Day One, or One Day?”  We all went quiet.  I had learnt something new. Apparently, at 57, I am still collecting basic instructions on how to live. Some people have retirement portfolios. I can have revelations that would probably have been useful in 1993.

It is this: One day. Or Day One. Same words. Completely different life.

I have spent an astonishing amount of time in One Day. One day I will finish that script. One day I will get properly fit. One day I will learn enough Hebrew to understand what people are saying to me without smiling, nodding, and occasionally discovering that I have agreed to something. One day I will sort out the cupboard. One day I will make that phone call. One day I will do the frightening thing. One day I will get my shit together. (That last one has been pending for some time.)

The trouble with One Day is that it sounds like a plan. It isn’t. It is a lovely waiting room where we put the lives we intend to live while we get on with the considerably less frightening business of living the ones we already have. And I am very good at it. I can procrastinate with enormous purpose. I don’t simply avoid something. I prepare to do it. I think about doing it. I discuss doing it. I make lists about doing it. On particularly productive days, I move the item from one list to another. This creates the satisfying impression that something has happened. Nothing has happened, but the handwriting is excellent.

I don’t think we put things off because we are........

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