Life Line

There is that moment before a deadline when time seems to open up, the river starts flowing, creativity explodes under the gun. It has to be done, so it just happens. We create, we make it happen. But why not before that moment? What is it about that moment that lights our fire? Where we suddenly become efficient. And productive. That nothing can stop us. We are a force. A powerful creative force.

It is the deadline that forces this. And if there isn't a newspaper that needs to be printed, we can make up this moment. This arbitrary time in which all things will fall apart if the project is not completed. But the deadline only works if we place it in the world outside our own heads. If we commit to someone else. Making a promise to do something by a certain time on a particular day, and telling someone.

Otherwise, our little wiley monkey mind as a way of widdling its way out of it. Coming up with excuses. Reasons. Ways around it. Justifying why it can't be done. But if we have that other person, that group of people outside our own head, we have a tether to accountability. A rope to the world outside ourselves. A kind of life buoy.