A Certainty of Failure

Currently, at work, I am in a bit of a quandary, as I have 60,000 letters to print out and send to union members and I have until last Friday to do it. Add into this the fact that I only started this (Monday after the last Friday) morning.

Put simply, it is utterly impossible to meet this deadline. There is A Certainty of Failure.

However despairing this may be however, it is also quite liberating. With a guaranteed failure regardless of what you do, there really isn't much incentive to work too hard and the pressure has completely gone. Of course, this is a slightly limiting view, as I have to mitigate this particular scenario by working as fast as possible, but the pressure is off all the same. The deadline passed, and the world didn't end.

I think it's a similar approach that I take to a lot of things in life. If I don't see any real urgency to do something, I'm more likely to do it. My comics for example have been lolling around in a state of hibernation for about 9 months and I've only just started working on them again, but only because I don't feel any great urgency. Admittedly, the only urgency I had before was the UK Web and Mini Comix thing and it was important to try and get some new stuff ready for it, but even this completely stifled any kind of creativity in the process.

It seems odd, and I'm sure I may be an exception to the norm, but with a Certainty of Failure, I seem to do quite well. Of course, I still fail, but it's one of those failures that makes people go "Actually, he did quite well, all things considering". Not a brilliant core attribute, but I'll take it.

Additional Notes:
Before throwing all of this into a spell checker, I managed to spell "failure" wrong every time I wrote it. I find this wonderfully ironic.

The UK Web and Mini Comix thing is held in a hall in Queen Mary University in East London and is on this Saturday. It's a decent day if you're into your webcomics, or would like to see how some people spend their hobby time. There are some genuinely interesting people (and some terrifyingly frightening people too, but less of these). Visit their website at http://ukwebcomixthing.co.uk/ .