Stuck in the Stew

I've written before about limbo--call it a game, call it a place--it's that situation when you don't know quite where you are or what your next move could or should be. Many of us spend a great deal of time in limbo--between jobs, waiting for school test scores, or anticipating admissions decisions. Limbo makes it hard to move forward, because you'd be traveling a road that's got lots of indefinite turns. And yet, in one way or another, we all live in some kind of limbo, limbo usually created by people or factors outside of ourselves.
 
But what if the limbo is of our own creation, because we can't or won't bring ourselves to move forward? Limbo is limbo, but when we bring it upon ourselves, I'd call it stewing.
 
I've done a lot of stewing this week. Spending lots of time not making decisions, or making not important decisions, while letting things that needed to be addressed soak in a stew of indecision. But today, I turned off the stew. While I can't say I checked things off on a "to do list," I decided that limbo created by factors BEYOND my control didn't justify spending time stewing over things WITHIN my control.
 
There will always be limbo. In an age of non-permanent jobs, and school choice, and options for everything under the sun, there are so many variables, the processing of all of them can't help but leave you stuck. But stuck in the stew--a limbo of our own creation--wastes our time and our energy, leaving us too weary to play that ongoing game of limbo.
 
So, when it comes to limbo, play on--you don't have much choice. But when it comes to stew, stop stirring. Believe me, it's done. The best thing you can do is take it off the flame and move on.