'The dreadin's always worse than the doin''

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This is not my story. Another reporter once told me about an Outer Banks fisherman whose plain-sense ditties really stuck with folks. One day he was stalling on an important task: helping his recalcitrant mother evacuate before a hurricane hit. He was tired and wanted to avoid the confrontation and physical labor involved. He finally sighed, lifted himself out of a comfortable chair and announced,"Well, the dreadin's always worse than the doin' anyway." Then he convinced his mother to let him help her get out of town.

I can relate. I don't want to discuss the details, but let's just say I've had a pit in my stomach this week that even the strongest of anxiety-induced stomach acid has been unable to dissolve. As a result, I'm heading into Saturday's 22-mile run around Mission Bay with barely any mileage under my belt.

And speaking of dread, in case you missed it, science now offers proof to that fisherman's point. A new study says that people do tend to work themselves up during the penultimate moment of an unwanted task. In one experiment, people even accepted higher voltage during a particularly painful therapy just to avoid waiting for the next zap. What a shock.

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