The Fake Urgency Dog

Metaphorical Narrative

There it is again—the nagging voice: You should be done by now.
But in your mind’s eye it isn’t a wise guide. It’s a stupid dog, foaming at the mouth, its jaw not flesh but a giant metal claw snapping at your leg.

It lunges to trap you, to pull you forward in panic, to make you sprint on command. The more you notice it, the more ridiculous it looks. A fake urgency dog. Nothing noble, nothing true. Just a noisy clawed mouth that doesn’t deserve your leg.

You don’t wrestle with it. You step aside. Its bite catches only air. The dog snaps and snarls, but you walk on, calmly at your own pace.

Core Insight

You should be done by now is not wisdom—it’s a hijack. Urgency here is not real; it’s a false demand that agitates the body into stress.

It often disguises itself as a deadline, but one built on nothing more than imagined criteria. Completion is treated as if it were permission for something else, or as a signal that some other activity must begin. Behind the scenes, the stressor is blind to factual information about how long something actually takes. It ignores reality and replaces it with fiction.

EF control is how you cut the leash. You remind yourself: “I follow my calendar. Nothing else owns my pace.” When urgency is fake, it collapses the moment you refuse to be bitten.

Saturday Experiment

1. When the thought you should be done by now appears, picture the dog with a metal claw mouth snapping at your leg.
2. Step aside in your imagination. Let it bite air, not you.
3. Say out loud: This urgency is fake. Nothing can agitate me. I follow only my calendar.
4. If you want to mock it, laugh: Nice try, claw dog. Go fetch your own bone.
5. Or fold its demand into a paper plane and toss it away.
6. Finally, look at the silly dog and, instead of fear, let curiosity take over. Ask it gently: “Are you okay, little dog?” Watch how the whole scene collapses from stress into absurd compassion.

Sunday Reflection

• When did the fake urgency dog show up this weekend?
• How did your body feel before and after stepping aside?
• Did you notice any imagined deadlines that were ignoring reality?
• How did it change things when you asked the dog, “Are you okay?”
• From the outside looking at yourself, how did you honor calm ownership over false urgency?