One problem leads to the next...

Hmm, don't you just hate how one problem inevitably leads to another? This is such a confounding issue for me and constantly keeps me from taking any action at all.

Taking a silly example, I often have the situation where I finished drinking my coffee and need to refill my cup with more. So this seems like a 2-minute task to get more coffee and then I'll be able to continue whatever I was doing.

Ahhh, but it's never that simple. On the way to solving the empty cup problem, there will always be other problems popping up. I'll notice that some dishes are unwashed. Or that the tissue box on a table is empty and I need to get another box. Or maybe the hanging laundry is dry and I should take it down. Or that I should now wash a load of laundry (which also means later that I'll have laundry to hang up). And so on and so forth. So that 2-minute task can suddenly turn into a 20- or 30-minute task. Then the next time I want a cup of coffee, I'm hesitant to even bother solving the problem because I just feel that it will lead to many other problems I have to handle.

Yet those other problems are still there. It's not like avoiding them makes them go away. Or does it? Sometimes putting off a problem eventually leads to a time when the problem doesn't matter anymore. But there's no guarantee, and sometimes it actually leads to an even bigger problem.

This plagues me all the time. When I try to sit down and think about how to solve a problem, I start thinking of all the other problems it relates to. I feel like I get nowhere. It makes me want to just forget about the problem for now and hope I somehow come up with a solution later. So frustrating...