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Stop Trying to Fix It
It’s not about the nail
If you’ve not watched It’s Not About The Nail on YouTube you should. It’s a short and funny take on men’s obsession with fixing a problem rather than giving emotional support to the partner who’s dealing with it. It’s simply an observation with no message to take away but it shoe horns us into my piece addressing the efficacy of fixing ourselves.
Labels
Labels can be extremely useful when it comes to solutions. For example its useful having your headache tablets appropriately labelled or having your bleach container labelled ‘corrosive’. However labelling something as seemingly simple as a headache can be problematic. The contents of the medicine cabinet may or may not relieve the pain and may or may not be an appropriate remedy.
Unremarkably I am a serial procrastinator. I say ‘unremarkably’ as I have little doubt that everyone is guilty of this to some extent, even those with an over abundance of positivity. The gurus tell me I shouldn’t get too hung up about this and that there are often good reasons for putting tasks off. The problem for me comes when I attach a ‘procrastination’ label. It then becomes a specific problem for which I need a solution even though procrastination is not a specific problem. Rather it is a general term that simple means putting things off.
