Dear Kid,

“Order NOW and we’ll throw in the knife holder for FREE!!! Never mind that it’s worthless and you’ll never use it, it’s FREEEE!! And remember, this is a limited time offer, so CALL NOW!”

We’ve all heard the TV infomercial sales pitch. We’ve all joked about “But wait! There’s more!” We all know the seller of The-Item-Of-The-Moment isn’t going to lose any sleep over Order Now and We’ll Double Your Order!!!

And yet, gazillions of people rush to pick up the phone and order the skin-care-frying-crock-pot-vacuum-garden-hose of the moment. So something in the urgency of the messages is causing people to take action.

What’s interesting is that life is often like one of the Buy It NOW! commercials. Sometimes it feels like we just HAVE to make decisions, make changes, say something immediately if not sooner.

And it’s the immediately if not sooner that can sometimes cause problems.

Sure there are things that should be dealt with right away: paper cuts, accidentally stepping on someone’s foot, an overdue phone bill, studying for tomorrow’s test.

But there are many things that sometimes feel urgent, that aren’t—or at least aren’t quite as urgent as we might think they are.

It always amazes me when we go to the emergency room that we aren’t treated the way TV emergency rooms treat incoming patients. Even the one time we went in an ambulance (for Pi’s broken arm bones) things seemed to take a loooong time.

Thankfully, neither of you have ever been Severely Wounded or Requiring Life Saving Surgery, but still. We wait. We see someone and we wait more.

No matter how Concerned Mother-y I get, we wait.

I’ve learned that if the Medical Professionals don’t seemed panicked, there’s probably no reason for me to panic either EXCEPT THAT’S MY BABY WE’RE TALKING ABOUT.

Most of the time when we feel that urgency to do-act-say it’s not because there is true urgency. Generally it’s because there is true uncertainty and Doing Something will End the Uncertainty. Too often it will not end it in a good way.

The point is, when you feel that panic, that “I have to make a decision Right Now,” take a deep breath. Recognize the world will not end if wait a bit. Call someone not caught in the DoItNow mode (perhaps your mother?).

You’ll almost always make a better decision if you relax.

Love, Mom