Tag: procrastination

The Right Moment

I spend so much of my life waiting.

Waiting for the right circumstances, waiting for the right people to say/do the right things.

Waiting for that “right moment” to do… anything. Especially the things I know will make me happy in the long run.

Reading Derek Sivers’ book, Hell Yeah or No, I came across a piece that wound up explaining, for the most part, what this winds up looking like: Too many ands. As he puts it:

My unwritten condition for when to exercise was this:

When it’s a nice day, and I’ve finished my work, and I haven’t just eaten, and I’m feeling energetic.

But of course that rarely happens, so I wasn’t exercising enough.

Derek Sivers, Hell Yeah or No: What’s Worth Doing

I can’t go train Parkour unless I’ve finished my tasks for the day AND I haven’t just eaten AND I feel up for it, AND there isn’t much traffic AND I can make it on time. I can’t write a blog unless the timing aligns with the different timezones AND I’ve caught up to my reader a bit AND I have any sources lined up AND- well, you get the idea.

Over and above these conditions, though, is something a lot more intangible. Some sort of strange, “It’s not right,” feeling that isn’t instinct so much as a weird delay of gratification because of this need for an ideal set of circumstances.

My girlfriend gave me the gift of one of those retro gaming consoles. I love it, but I never play on it. Because of some vague sense that the environment isn’t perfectly set up for me to sit and play. Too much potential for interruption, too many steps between finding where it’s safely stored, through to unboxing, through to making sure my family doesn’t see and judge me for it.

I’m tired of waiting for special occasions. I want to just do the things that make me happy, and write and post when I want to, and train when I want/need to, and the rest will come with time and the independence of moving out.

Until then, I know, logically, that the moments will only ever be as right as I can make them. So to the extent that I can control it, I want to stop living my life on pause, waiting to be free enough to live.

Consistently Inconsistent

I have always struggled with consistency.

Well. Not always. As a child I was obsessive about my passions, with seemingly endless reserves of energy, curiosity, and creativity to channel.

I was constantly writing poems and short stories, and reading books that I was sometimes too young to even understand.

I would be outside everyday, eager to explore and try new things. Climbing, running, jumping.

I taught myself how to ride a bike without training wheels, spending weeks practicing in the narrow corridor outside our apartment, one hand on the wall. I still have a scar on my finger from a particularly nasty fall during one of those sessions.

I taught myself how to inline skate. Then how to jump on them. Then how to go backwards and do simple slalom tricks.

But all that was a long time ago.

As the years have passed, my ability to stick to the things I want to do has dwindled. I keep abandoning writing projects. I’m inconsistent with my physical therapy and my workouts and my Parkour training.

I start things. I stop them. I start them again. And then they gather dust.

There’s far less issue with projects or tasks that have external factors involved. My studies, and now with work, I channel almost all my energy into because other people are involved. Other people are going to be disappointed. There’s consequences beyond my own disappointment in myself.

But when it comes to the things I claim to love… Reading, writing, Parkour… Even the things that are good for me, like my physical therapy, or better sleep/eating habits. It all goes to shit, really fast.

I can go on forever about all the possible reasons/excuses why. My struggles with mental health. My family slowly choking out my passions because they weren’t “productive,” so I could focus on my academics and nothing else. Maybe I don’t want it enough. Maybe I lack discipline. Maybe I’m just worthless.

Maybe it’s all of the above.

But I guess I can’t really figure that out unless I call out the problem, which is that the only thing I’m consistent at is being inconsistent.

I hate myself for it.