Don't confuse want to do with want to have done

When I was in college, my house-mates planned a large number of ski trips. On one particular one, two friends, Chris and George, skiied down a particularly difficult double black diamond. Not sure if this was in Colorado or not (I think it was), but when the two of them returned at the end of the day, they were tired. Chris let the rest of them know that he and George had gone down the hard run, and George exclaimed it was the hardest run he had ever done, and he hadn't even wanted to do it! He was terrified the whole time! Chris turned to him somewhat confused and said, "But you said you wanted to do it!"

George answered, "No, I said, I wanted to have done it, I never said I wanted to do it."

There are a large number of things in life like that: you want to have done them, but that doesn't mean you want to do them. I want the dishes done, but I may not want to do them (possibly a bad example, I find washing dishes meditative these days, as long there aren't too many). I want the toilet clean, but I don't want to clean it.

Here's a better example: I want to stand at Base Camp One of Mount Everest, but I'm not willing to put forth the effort, time and money needed to be standing at the bottom of the tallest mountain in the world.

There are things you want to do in life, and there are things you want to have done in life. If you're not willing to put forth the effort to actually do the items on your to-do list, they will never move to the to-done list. They aren't really things you want to do, they are things you want to have done. There's a big difference, and that difference is how much time, focus, money, life you are willing to pour into accomplishing a task.

If that commitment is zero or otherwise too low, you'll never do it.

And sometimes that's okay.

Sometimes, it is okay to have to-do items left undone.

But let it be a choice. Make that choice obvious. Know what you want to do and what you want to have done. Know that those things you want to do are about the journey, while those things you want to have done are about the destination.

And if you know that you won't do the "want to do" without someone pushing you, go out and find your own Chris to help you to the top of the mountain, where the only way down is through the "want to have done."

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