I Can’t Make Me

That moment when you realize that you are really an adult might just have something to do with motivating yourself to do an unpleasant task. We think of being an adult as finally getting to do all of the things that we were prevented from doing as kids. If I thought at all about all of the things that require prompting to do, I assumed that adults didn’t need that external push. I found out soon enough that I was wrong.

This topic is coming to mind because I’m trying to get up the energy to do my taxes. Bleh. There are some chores that I don’t like I have come to a neutral place on – I just do them and as long as things go smoothly, I don’t think too much about it. But taxes never seem to go smoothly. Just the act of gathering all the right paperwork is so tedious that it brings out the obstinate little pouty kid who shouts ‘you can’t make me’ over and over.

My sister used to have a friend who went to the trouble to run the vacuum throughout the house without turning it on in an act of defiant compliance. Even as a kid I thought that defied logic – if you are going to go to the trouble to run it over the carpet, how hard is it to turn it on? But I also get the defiance, the dig your heels in contrariness of the act.

Sometimes even as adults we need to have someone else make us do something – hence the need for many laws – things that will give us great benefit like eating healthy, saving for retirement, getting our teeth cleaned.

There must be a solid evolutionary reason why we are so obstreperous at times. I have found myself splitting into two minds – one is being terribly unruly and the other is consternated not only by the childish stand but also by the choice of the fit. Why-ever have I chosen to cling to this particular cliff?

How about you, what was the oddest situation where you dug your heels in?