I should stop being so vague. What I really mean to say is that I hate deadlines. I don't like to use the word hate…it is a bad word…but it is the only word I can find that really shows the degree of my dislike for those wretched things. Deadlines are the scum of the earth…and I refuse to accept them anymore.

It will be easy for me to be misunderstood. I am not pointing my rage gun at everyday deadlines. Those include things like paying bills, wedding dates, getting homework done, etc. Those are things that have to be done. We have to pay our bills by certain dates or there are serious problems. I don't like the deadlines that we as a society set upon ourselves.

I don't like that we force women and men to feel like they have to be married by a certain time in their lives. People who are 40 and single have the same capacity for happiness than a married 40 year old. The only thing different between them is their experience of life. Some people feel pressured turning a "dating" relationship into a serious one only because the people in their lives convince them that a clock is ticking. Relationships are hard enough to sort out without societies deadline looming over us.

We put deadlines on ourselves. When I am 30 I will be doing this. When I am 38 I will have this car. When I am "blah blah" I will do "blah blah" I am not saying goals are bad. Goals are awesome. Goals are absolutely necessary. My problem is putting a deadline on our goals. Can't we just enjoy this life trip without having to plan it minute by minute? The only thing that matters is that someday we reach the place we want to be. Setting deadlines in this regard seem only to set us up for pain in the soul while we sit in our beddies at night.

I realize that my aversion for deadlines might be rooted in a deep character flaw.

I don't like setting deadlines for self-improvement on certain dates on the calendar. When I think of New Years day I usually feel sick in my tummy because I view that as the day I change some sort of behavior that needs to go. It becomes a day of sacrifice…not a day of being grateful for a new year. So when I fail a week after New Years on my diet than I set a new deadline for after my birthday (which is a week later) so when that diet fails I set a new diet deadline for after the Super bowl, and when that fails I set it for Lent, and when I fail at that I set the new one for after Easter…and so on and so no. Yes, I know. I understand that the problems with my own deadlines is my near invisible will power.

Perhaps me and deadlines and me should have a sit down and learn to compromise. I think deadlines could maybe agree to stay out of people's personal lives, and I could counter by agreeing to make that Doctors appointment I keep putting back year after year.

Plus the word deadline is such an unattractive word.  If someone has a better term than I might feel better about it.  And don't be pitching the word expectation at me...I like that one as much as I spider bite on my pupil.