Deadlines

I am the type of person who flounders without structure. I completely wilt and avoid doing anything productive without some external (or at least perceived as external) force holding me accountable. One crucial piece of motivation I need is a deadline, or deadlines, even self-imposed to spur me into action.

As I begin this searching process and am trying to take it more seriously in the past I find myself avoiding doing anything related to the search. I make up excuses like I am too tired or should respond to emails instead or watch a show…etc. Somehow it is never important enough to take time away from other things in my life. I am sure part of my avoidance has to do with my fear that the search will ultimately lead to some type of rejection. I go through painstaking work each day to avoid even the smallest instances of rejection which cannot be healthy.

On a more practical level the complexity of the task irritates me because I want there to be a straight forward process that I can follow or a template that someone has created that I can fill in with all my little details and then follow along. As I pointed out in my previous post it is unclear to me what step 1 in this process is and that it is impossible to know which avenue is the most effective at the beginning. I should just shut up and start somewhere, right?

Related to the difficulty I am having getting myself to actually start anything is the fact that I feel like I don’t have specific deadlines. In some ways I feel like given the vast uncertainty of the state of any of my biological relatives I should be working as fast as possible to find someone. I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve heard stories of the adoptee who waits and waits and when they finally decide to search and do find someone that someone is dead. Its heartbreaking in ways I’ve never felt before (and would prefer to avoid if at all possible). In this line of thinking I fee like I am simultaneously already too late so what’s the point of rushing and should be moving as quickly as possible. It frustrates me.

As you may be thinking and possibly even wanting to say to me, “Kumar, shut up. Yes, this process is complicated but you will never know anything by not doing anything. Sitting around trying to hide from rejection isn’t cute so cut it out.” You are right, thanks for that pep talk.

Back to the deadlines thing, I am going to create some arbitrary deadlines that I hope will spur me into action, heck you can even scold me if I don’t keep myself to them if you’d like.

The first two will be simple:

1. Say What You Know – November 25th I will share with you, dear of interweb spam bots and occasional people, what I “know” about my personal history in India
2. What Do I Want? – December 6th I will articulate what I am trying to get out of this whole searching process, besides the obvious (finding someone(s))

Ha! Take that unstructured life! I think these first two deadlines will help me think about the search from more than just a “logistical” point of view and more of a reflective stance which I hope will help guide me as I keep making up arbitrary deadlines to trick my silly brain into doing something.