Deal with the Dead Squirrel

Friday is my day off each week, and yet I usually have a “to do” list for Fridays.  A couple of weeks ago my Friday “to do” list started with the words, “deal with the dead squirrel.”  You know any day that begins with “deal with the dead squirrel” is going to be a good day!

A few weeks earlier my wife had noticed a dead squirrel lying on the ground by the back of our house and had brought it to my attention.  (In the division of labor at our house, dealing with dead squirrels is in my domain.)  While it was bitter cold outside I wasn’t very motivated to do anything with the squirrel, but as the weather began to warm I thought about the implications of that for a dead squirrel and I did begin to get motivated to do something about it.  So, I made note-to-self that first thing on my upcoming day off I would deal with the dead squirrel.  The appointed hour of the appointed day arrived, I went outside to survey the scene and determine a course of action, only to discover that the corpse was gone!  Apparently some other critter also had it on his “to do” list to “deal with the dead squirrel” and had beaten me to it.  And I was OK with that.

The fact that I had prioritized that unpleasant chore to the top of the list for the day brought to mind a quote attributed to Mark Twain, “If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning.  And if it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.”  Obviously, I agree.  I too would rather do the unpleasant thing first rather than continue to dread it, knowing it continues to loom in front of me.  And if there’s more than one unpleasant thing to be done I would rather do the most unpleasant one first.  If it has to be done I too would prefer to go ahead and get it done, get it behind me, and move on to the more enjoyable things that await.  Postponing the known unpleasant task just seems to be an invitation for an attitude of sloth to enter in and seep into more aspects of my life, and I would rather nip that before it starts.

Every day has its share of both, the pleasant and the unpleasant, and we probably have some discretion over the order in which we approach those tasks.  It’s not in the Bible, but I do think it good for us to subscribe to the wisdom offered, “If it’s your job to eat a frog…”