Swallowing the Frog

June 28th, 2017

Today I had to swallow some frogs.  Not real frogs of course...but the symbolic frogs that Mark Twain mentions in his famous quote:

"If it's your job to eat a frog, it's best to do it first thing in the morning. And if it's your job to eat two frogs, it's best to eat the biggest one first."

     Mr. Twain knew that sometimes we are supposed to do things that we would just rather put off because their no fun, stressful, will be time consuming, or we just can't stand doing. He calls these chores "frogs."  Most of us probably want to do our least favorite task as much as we would want to swallow a frog.  If these "frogs" need to be swallowed in order for us to make progress on our goals, we might as well get started right away. If we postpone it, we start imagining how gross it's going to be and can talk ourselves out of ever getting it done.

      I did have two frogs that needed swallowing today. 

      Because I'm taking my trip to the Camino de Santiago in September, there were two important bookings I had to make that felt really difficult...and frankly, made me nervous. They involved communicating in Spanish, sending emails to Spain that didn't seem to want to go through, and trying to decide how I could find a safe place to stay upon arriving in Madrid...at 11:45 pm...alone.   These were time consuming and I was so scared that I wouldn't be able to find a solution.  But I swallowed.  

    I gotta say that I'm elated that I'm done with those two tasks.  I admit there was a point that I thought the frogs might choke me, but having them done means that the rest of my planning will be sheer fun.  I guess it's kind of like saying that frogs have a great after taste. (This is definitely not a vegan analogy! Except that it is double true for me that I don't want to swallow frogs.)  

If I hadn't taken care of this business, it would have been like having a grey nuclear cloud mushrooming over my head every day until I did. And as usual, it was easier to get it done than I thought! Half of the difficulty were obstacles that I had made up in my head.

So, swallow your frogs today.  Swallow them early and then go and enjoy your day!

Peace!