How many times a day do you put off doing or feeling something because it is uncomfortable? The, oh, so familiar term -- procrastination -- takes hold of everyone at one point or another. It could be something small -- like not wanting to do a homework assignment; or it could be something big -- like knowing that you should tell a significant person in your life that you don’t feel the same way about them anymore.

There is a method that aligns almost perfectly with the false idea that putting things off for long enough will help them to disappear, and help you to avoid discomfort. It is something that I learned in my ethics class, and it is called the sorites paradox. The word “sorites” comes from the Greek meaning, “heap.” Basically, when you have a pile of sand and pick one grain from the pile, it is small and harmless. You continue putting grains together because they do not seem like they could grow into anything substantial. But, at one point or another, you realize that you have allowed so many to accumulate, that they have turned into a heap.

There is something I have recently realized that is stronger than the power of an action, and that is the power of inaction. We decide to put things off -- one grain at a time -- so much that we become buried by all of the things that seemed so small on their own. It is easy to continue on, avoiding doing something uncomfortable, until you realize that you’ve done something wrong. Then comes the real pain: going back through your pile, picking each grain of sand you let fall, and having to address it all at once. I know that every one of us has been there, or maybe is there, right now. I definitely have had my fair share of those experiences, be it with other people and even myself. The absolute worst part about it is that there is no true solution. The best advice I can give is not to allow anything to pass.

So many of us let our lives continue on, distinguished by banality. All that we do seems to be just so painfully boring and average that we do not want to lose the comfort we have in that. But imagine if you decided that your life is extraordinary, and that avoiding pain, no matter how much or how little, is not possible. I think that is why we procrastinate. We are scared. We are so scared, that it is easier to believe that the small things will never harm us as much as the big things have. But what we fail to see is that all of the major events in our lives, the ones that have caused us the most torment, are likely to have happened because of our refusal to address them one by one, when they were small. Seconds seem like such minuscule increments of time, but when you add them together, they turn into days, months and years.

If, when you are with someone, you know with everything in you that you want to be with that person, but refuse to tell or show how you really feel, you’re living your life in fear. Pretty soon, all of the small moments you have let slip by without your honesty will become the puzzle pieces of a realization on their part. Maybe what they deserve is someone who is willing to face the possibility of heartache at the chance of finding something real. Or, maybe you are keeping a secret, something that is harmless right now, but slowly eats away at you, every day. Something that keeps you up at night, something that could be so easily resolved if you just said what you had to say in order to save yourself and the person who you’re not being honest with, a whole lot of hurting down the road. It is unethical, really, the whole of procrastination.

If you know there is something that needs to be said, done or felt, why aren’t you letting it happen? If you are holding something in, you will become its prisoner. I believe more now, than I ever have in my whole life, that if you have something to say, no time is better than now to say it.