A Procrastinator’s Insight Into Time and Fear
If you’re anything like me, a lifelong procrastinator, you keep projects in a holding cell, a sort of mind penitentiary, locked up with all the other “things to do”.
Each task has visitation rights, and I visit often with my standard greeting:
“Hey, I know you’re doing time, but one day I promise to get you out of here.”
There is no doubt in my mind the day will come when each task will be up for parole. From afar, those days look so beautiful! A landscape of victory and success. All things are possible.
Just not today.
But Why?
Two chronic offenders come to mind: time and fear. For most of my life, running out of time was never a consideration. It was like an endless roll of toilet paper never needing to be replaced. Save the sense of urgency for those who’ll maybe die one day.
Which brings me to fear: not the fear of dying, but of ordinary things like cooking a meal, making a phone call or seeing the doctor.
One frequent cause of paralysis is locating documents such as passports and birth certificates. In my house they could be anywhere — from an underwear drawer to a moldy bin in the basement. Sending out a search party is just too much to bear.
So there you have it: fear is the ultimate motivator — to do nothing.
I routinely shun the contents of everyday life with minimal effect on operations (although I admit, this is debatable).
But now, something is beginning to disturb me.
Day after day I look over my shoulder at my unfinished poetry book laying beside my unrecorded music. In that windowless room of perpetual neglect, I feel an overwhelming sense of loss and sadness.
Clearly it’s not just the mechanics of life that I’m shunning, but my very essence as a human being — one with a desire for self expression. The creative projects in my mind penitentiary do not deserve to be there. Not because they’re my flesh and blood, but because they are innocent.
Perhaps the problem isn’t delay, but delusion — a distorted vision of who I am and what I’m capable of achieving. There’s a meme that keeps popping up in my inner feed
“I don’t believe in you, and guess what? Your work sucks”
Even so, it’s a boring excuse.
Maybe I’m overthinking this and simply have a terrible work ethic. Maybe I don’t care enough to try. Maybe my full time job and family are all I can handle in life. But maybe not.
The time has come to dance with my demons.
I’ll start by purifying the mindscape beginning with my perceptions of time and fear. I see now that one is a precious commodity and the other a jailhouse bully that whispers relentlessly in my ear.
I’ll stand up to him with music and ideas shared with others and brought to completion — whether good, bad or worse; mediocre.
It doesn’t matter to me anymore why I don’t do something. What matters now is why I do.
Not because my tomorrows are finite, but because my natural desire to express myself is infinite —containing all the power in the universe to set my captives free.
