Alright, let me tell you about how I finally wrapped my head around this saying, “kicked the can down the road”. For the longest time, I’d hear people use it, maybe in meetings or just general chat, and I’d just nod along like I knew exactly what was up.
Honestly? I kinda pictured someone literally kicking an old tin can. Sounded silly, especially when folks were talking about serious stuff like budgets or project deadlines. I remember trying to figure it out just from context, but it never quite clicked. Felt a bit awkward to just straight up ask, “Hey, what’s that actually mean?” after nodding wisely so many times, you know?
Then we had this situation at work. There was this issue, a real sticky one, that needed a decision. A tough one. Everyone knew it. But meeting after meeting, it was always, “Let’s gather more info,” or “We should review this next month,” or “Maybe we form a small group to look into it.” Sound familiar?
We just kept circling it. Nobody wanted to make the hard call. Then one afternoon, after another meeting where we basically decided not to decide, a colleague sighed and said, “Well, we kicked that can down the road again.”
And bam! It suddenly made perfect sense. The ‘can’ wasn’t a physical object. It was the problem. The tough decision. Kicking it ‘down the road’ meant pushing it off, delaying dealing with it, hoping maybe it gets easier later or someone else handles it.
So what did I figure out?
It’s really just about procrastination, but on a bigger scale sometimes. Avoiding something difficult right now.
- You see politicians do it constantly, right? Putting off tough choices until after an election or something.
- Happens in business all the time – delaying budget cuts, postponing tricky conversations.
- Even in personal life, like maybe putting off fixing that leaky faucet until it gets really bad. That’s kicking the can too, in a way.
So yeah, that was my journey with that phrase. I didn’t look it up in some fancy dictionary. I saw it happen. We avoided the tough choice, pushed the problem further away. We kicked the can. Now when I hear it, I get it. It’s just delaying the inevitable, usually making it someone else’s problem down the line. Simple as that, once you see it play out.