The Road to Hell Is Paved with Avoidance

Have you ever noticed that things always tend to break when you are broke…and when you really, really, really, really need them the most?

That’s what happened this morning. My husband returned home from his first night shift back at work after a much-needed two weeks off and reported that the brakes in his car were making that dreaded grinding sound. You know the one. It means “Cough up at least $250 immediately” in car language. And of course it didn’t happen while he was off and we didn’t need both cars so that each of us could get to work. It happened right in the middle of a particularly tight budget week.

But it is what it is, and there was no getting around it. We needed that car and couldn’t avoid the necessary repairs, so we put our heads together and came up with a solution within five minutes. I was so proud of my husband (aka “Mañana Man”) for facing the issue head on instead of avoiding it the way he has often done in the past. I used to tease him about how whenever he noticed the car making a funny noise, he’d just turn up the radio so that he didn’t have to hear it anymore. Job done…right?!!

We all have stuff we avoid. I avoided our finished basement for years because the carpet and sofa were stained, the kids’ toys had taken over, and it was dark and dingy and ugly, and I didn’t have the money to get new carpeting or a new sofa. I found myself trying to fit all my stuff into the main level of our house, making that more cluttered than I wanted, just so that I didn’t have to go down there as often to get  the things I needed. I dreaded doing the laundry, because it meant I had to spend time in that depressing environment. I refused to hang out with my husband or children down there. It felt like a dungeon.

Eventually, I got so annoyed at having to relinquish the use of one-third of my house just because it was ugly that I finally decided to do something about it. I painted it, bought slip covers and new drapes, purged  all the toys the kids had outgrown and re-organized the rest, and cleaned the carpet. When I was done, I not only liked it again, I spent most of my days working down there. I even made sure we had a Christmas tree down there so that we could open up our gifts in front of the fireplace. It was awesome, and I was left wondering why I hadn’t done it sooner…why I had wasted all that precious time avoiding the thing that would lead to such a positive outcome. The work and inconvenience of it was far worse in my head than it was in reality and was well-worth it. It took about three days but I have now been able to enjoy that part of my house for over a year. Winning!

One of my favorite shows on TV is “Buried Alive” on Discovery Health Channel. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s a show about extreme hoarders who decide it’s time to get the psychiatric and organizational help they need to clear up their clutter. Avoidance is the main M.O. for practically all of them. They have developed hoarding behaviors as a means of covering up, or avoiding, their emotional pain. They avoid cleaning up and putting things away. They literally build up barriers of stuff to avoid dealing with their nagging spouse or kids. They avoid the reality of their financial issues by continuing to shop for more stuff they don’t need with money they don’t  have. They avoid making repairs in their home and thus often go without power or water for years. Then they begin avoiding relationships because they have to hide their hoarding problem. Life eventually becomes so miserable, the smallest tasks so cumbersome, the mess so paralyzing and their self-esteem so low that they are forced to confront the issue and fix it. And most of them do and then can’t believe how wonderful it is not to have maggots all over their kitchen and to be able to take a shower in their own bathroom or sleep in a bed again. They spent so many years bathing in the sink or eating takeout and robbing their kids of their childhoods that they couldn’t remember how incredibly easy normal life could be in comparison.

One of my clients this week told me that she found herself avoiding looking at  the new “Action” folder we set up for her incoming mail and other papers. After asking her several probing questions to get to the bottom of the issue, it came to light that she was afraid she’d make a mistake in filling out a form or would not be able to find some important document she needed in order to submit her health insurance claims. I pointed out to her that there are very few mistakes in life that cannot be corrected, and there is almost always someone somewhere who has a copy of any missing document or who can help you figure out how to achieve your goal without it. Perhaps it will require some inconvenience or may cost time or money you think you don’t have, but there is always a solution as long as you look for it instead of avoiding it. But more importantly, finding the solution is how we grow and learn, and isn’t that the whole point of living in the first place? To avoid the problem only avoids finding the solution, which in turn avoids learning and growing and living.

The old adage, “Never put off until tomorrow that which can be done today” really means, “Never put off the relief and joy and sense of accomplishment you feel when overcoming an obstacle if you can experience it today”. So next time you find yourself avoiding an unpleasant task, realize that you are also avoiding the sense of freedom that only comes from having completed it.