Deadlines

Bad decisions are all around us. Bernie Madoff and his multi-billion dollar scandal. The Buffalo Bills signing Terrel Owens. The guy I just saw at 7-11 buying a taco taquito instead of a monterrey jack. Just pay attention to the things going on as we walk down the street or drive in our car...hundreds of bad decisions.
But there is a difference between the three examples shared. There is something that harnesses these bad decisions...that allows for the right decision to be made, the second time around. And that is a deadline.

Take the taquito loving freshman from 7-11. His deadline is when he takes the last bite of his fried 750 calorie mid-finals week snack. Once he is finished, he will realize his bad decision and make the correct choice - moterrey jack - the next time he needs to fill his belly with artificially flavored meat and cheese.

Now the Buffalo Bills have a bit of a longer deadline. They signed T.O. to a one-year contract and will have to live with that decision for the duration of the year. They can't just fry him up, stuff him down their throat, and then poop him out like our taquito friend. But, after the year is up, the Bills will have the opportunity to either correct their mistake, by letting T.O. go, or continue with that by signing him to an extended contract and prolonging the bad decision.

Bernie Madoff is a bit different...and will eventually lead to the meat of this blog. Bernie didn't have a deadline for his bad decision. It was a bad decision that could have kept going until the day he died had he not been caught. There was no point in time for him to make him seriously question what he was doing. And thats why deadlines are so important.

As I graduate college, I realize that I, and many of my peers, are crossing one of the last serious deadlines in life. Decisions have to be made with much greater care and thought. In college, there is always the opportunity to start over, after graduation. But in life, such an opportunity does not exist. There's no deadline for getting married. There's no deadline for having kids (besides the abstract biological one). There's no deadline for getting that promotion. That's why decisions hold so much more weight now than they ever did before. You can't graduate life...you can only be enrolled in it.