Joe Gerstandt | keynote speaker, freedom fighter, freak-flag flier

I got called out by a friend recently.

Yes again.

There is a project I have been thinking about for a while and I was telling this friend about it.  “Awesome,” she said…”you have to do that.”  “I know, I know,” I replied, enjoying the positive feedback on my idea.

And then she popped my balloon.

“When?”

Silence.

A little squirming.

“When is this going to happen?”

“Well,” I said, still squirming, “I’m not entirely sure, lot of stuff going on right now ya know.”

Blah, blah, blah.

She smiled and said this to me- “You know, my dear friend, procrastination is an incredibly arrogant thing and it simply does not suit you.”

It is nice to have a friend who rumbles into my life about once every 6 months or so and just cuts to the heart of things. I count it among my many blessings.

Procrastination is arrogant.  There is always good reason to not put one more thing in motion right now.  There are deadlines and meetings and bills and children and all of the other things of life.  Procrastination assumes two things:

1-that there will be a later.

2- that your idea can wait…it is not urgent.

People that do other kinds of work can maybe afford to procrastinate.  Those of us that do the work of making communities and organizations better cannot.  We have no time to spare.  Every single day our organizations and communities are wasteful with human potential.  You and I have not a moment to spare.

Not only can we not afford to procrastinate, we cannot afford to be patient with our work.  We have to stop being realistic and pragmatic.

We are called to be relentless.

We are called to be radical.

Our schools and hospitals and governments are drowning in the realistic and starving for the radical.  What can be perfectly measured and monitored has crowded out what truly matters.  That is where our fight is.  We should fight more.

We are called to create change, not to ask for it.  We are called to be disruptive, not popular.

I know that I personally have gotten a little too comfortable, a little too normal and a little too patient and satisfied.

Start something today.

Be good to each other.