There are times in life when a lot is demanded of you all at once. And then there are times when one particular thing looms over everything else – the thing you dread, avoid, and put off because you know it is going to be miserable. I’ve learned the hard way that ignoring those problems does not make them disappear. In fact, it often makes them worse. If you know that something coming up is unavoidable and it’s going to suck, you need to plan ahead for it and grind through it, or you pay for it later.

I learned that lesson almost a decade ago, in the fall of 2016, when I was starting my freshman year of high school and expanding my herd of cows. That year, I applied for two heifer (young, female cow) scholarships, each of which awarded a free heifer from a local producer, with the requirement that you show the animal at the county fair the following year. In proper overambitious form, I applied for both and got both. Right before the new year 2017, I brought home two fall yearling heifers and named them Minerva and Petunia.

Because we were out of space in the barn, my dad and I built a makeshift stall to house them. Unlike the other cattle I had purchased that year, these two were not tame. They weren’t halter-broken, and they were nearly full-grown by the time I got them. I didn’t realize it then, but that was a big problem, and it only got worse.

Both heifers were mean. Minerva would just run away from me, even when I had grain, and she would try to charge me. Nothing I did worked. I tried tying her up, and slowly desensitizing her, but she never calmed down, even as Petunia slowly did. Then Minerva began gaining weight rapidly. One morning, I walked into the barn and discovered she had dropped a calf. Neither I nor my Dad nor the producer knew she was pregnant. We later realized she must have been bred at around seven months old by accident, which is extremely unusual.

By the end of that winter, I was getting so annoyed. I was getting nowhere. Instead of addressing the problem, I turned them back out into the field and told myself I would deal with it later. That was my second big mistake.

Fast forward to July of that year, and fair was less than a month away. I brought the rest of my show cattle home and began working with all nine of my animals that I was bringing that year. Everyone was progressing normally (even Petunia) but I had avoided working with Minerva as much as possible. She scared the shit out of me. Once she dropped her head and ran, I couldn’t regain control of her when I was leading her, because she was a full grown cow and I was 5’9 125 pounds at the time. It was not a fair fight. With two weeks left before the fair, I asked my Dad for help and he decided to try to “speed up” the halter-breaking process.

We tied Minerva’s lead rope to the saddle horn of one of our horses at the time, Rudy, while my dad rode him. The idea was simple: let Minerva fight the horse until she realized resistance was pointless, and she would chill out. That was the time-tested method that worked with cattle, and it had not failed once in my six years of showing thus far.

Unfortunately, we underestimated Minerva. She fought hard, pulling and running alongside the arena panels. Rudy was pouring sweat, barely holding his ground against this full-grown cow. It wasn’t working. Then the situation got even worse. She ran to one side of the arena we tie our animals up in and she caught her mouth on an eye-hole screw and tore it open about eight inches. Blood was everywhere.

We immediately let her go and turned her back out to the field to recover. It wasn’t so severe as to warrant a vet trip, but it required time to heal on its own. Cows are resilient, especially this spawn of Satan. With only two weeks left until the fair, I had no real opportunity to work with her again. And I had to take her as part of my scholarship.

When fair week arrived, I was anxious from the moment we unloaded. I had made minimal progress, and now I was putting an unpredictable animal into a crowded, confined environment. During the show, I used two sets of halters and moved her as little as possible. Quite literally just enough to get her judged. For the next four days, I sat in constant anxiety, worried she would escape or hurt someone. There were close calls. Thankfully, nothing catastrophic happened. But the stress was entirely avoidable. My failure to plan and confront the problem early turned what should have been my favorite week of the year into straight misery. It was only after we turned her out with the rest of the cows in the field after fair that she actually calmed down. To this day, she’s been a reliable member of my Dad’s herd, and about to have her 11th calf.

Fast forward to now, and I found myself facing a similar situation in a very different context. This year, I was selected to be a staff editor on law review. If you don’t know what that is, law review is a student-edited scholarly journal that publishes articles by legal scholars and notes written by students. It’s a great opportunity for developing legal research and writing skills, but it’s an enormous time commitment. I’ve spent literally 200 hours on it this academic year alone, on top of school & my new job.

I just submitted the final draft of my law review note today, eight days before the deadline. Even if it doesn’t get published (which it would be cool if I did, but am not really expecting it to be honest), I’m proud of my work. My topic is about gerrymandering, so I was already very well-versed in my knowledge of it. And I was able to take away a lot of good lessons. But that doesn’t mean the writing and researching process has been even remotely fun. Last month, I finished my first draft by cramming roughly 40 hours of work into three days before the first draft deadline. I do not recommend that approach. This time, I refused to repeat my mistake. Weeks in advance, I blocked out time, planned my workload, and got it done early because, between school, work, and other commitments, that was the only option for me to get it done and keep my sanity. And it worked, and it feels great to be finished with it.

There will always be unavoidable, time-consuming obligations. The question is whether you confront them proactively or let them corner you. I thought I could deal with Minerva later. When I finally tried to rush the process, it backfired and cost me time, safety, and peace of mind. The same principle applies to a lot of things: studying for exams, filing taxes, fixing your car. Avoidance doesn’t eliminate risk; in reality, it compounds it.

Planning ahead doesn’t make hard things easy, but it does make them manageable because you’re preparing yourself for what’s next. Because I planned my law review work, I was able to use the feedback I got productively and avoid sacrificing entire weekends to finish writing that I should have done weeks ago. Years earlier, my failure to do the same with Minerva caused stress that could have been avoided. It could have saved her from serious injury as well.

Avoiding difficult problems won’t get you anywhere. It may not result in a heifer tearing her mouth open two weeks before a county fair, but it will cost you time, energy, and peace of mind. Take stock of what you’ve been putting off. Make a plan to do it. Then follow through. I know I would have saved myself a lot of stress and pain if I had done that sooner. I probably would have saved Minerva a lot of it, too.

-Colby