Smart Enough to Know You Should Be Doing Better

You can see exactly what you should be doing. (That's what makes it worse)

You just spent twenty minutes on the phone telling your daughter exactly how to deal with the billing department. Which office to call first, what to say when they put her on hold, the order to do it all in. You have always been the one people come to when they don’t know where to start, and you are good at it.

An envelope from your insurance company has been on the kitchen counter for three weeks, unopened. You could deal with it in less time than you just spent on the phone. You know exactly what it needs, and you walk past it every day.

Knowing exactly what to do and still not doing it is the part you can’t explain to yourself.

Smart enough to watch it happen

People keep telling you you’re smart. Teachers said it, bosses have said it, your partner has said it mid-argument, and it didn’t land the way they thought it would. Because when someone says you’re so smart while you’re staring at a task you’ve been avoiding for nine days, what you hear is: so what’s your excuse.

The intelligence doesn’t help us start the task. It only helps us understand, in perfect detail, that we should be able to. We can see every step and the deadline coming, and still feel the gap between what we know and what we’re doing about it grow wider every hour we sit there.

Most people who struggle get the small mercy of not understanding why. We get clarity instead. We watch ourselves not do it, narrating the whole thing as it happens. You’re doing it again. You know this is due tomorrow. You know you’ll feel better once you start. Why are you still sitting here.