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Friday, March 6, 2020

Procrastination and Emotions

Apparently some people are thinking that procrastination is not about time management, or life management and planning in general, but is instead a matter of emotions. Here is an article for your pleasure.

It makes sense to me, as I have long struggled with certain elements of procrastination (who doesn't, these days?). I tend to think we are in an age of procrastination; everyone doing it in their own way. It is not good. The prevalence of all sorts of excuses not to do obvious everyday duties, excuses not to do things that will toughen you up, worries me.

And it is about emotions. We have to learn to buoy ourselves up so that we can lionheartedly deal with the things life is made of. We should not shirk them, or fear them. We should not imagine we need something to assuage our unmotivated gloom. A lot of the people I know seem to live to some degree on the Scale of Acedia. These days many of us suffer from not having any reason to live, and we also don't seem to realise that we will at some point suffer from feeling there is no point to live. If we knew that we would feel that way, and that it ultimately means nothing to whether life has a point at all or not, then we might be a lot better off.

But without that knowledge, we are not armed against the impending dark raincloud of pointlessness. We are incredibly susceptible to stories of doomful happenings and despair-inducing realities. This inadvertently heads into the territory of 'what to do about suffering,' but that's not the point here.

Ultimately, though, we'll have to deal with life often seeming a hopeless, pointless thing. The question we will have to answer is whether it even matters. If you constantly live worrying about whether life is hopeless or not, you'll probably never get to the actual meat of living, and therefore you'll be cut off from ever feeling like there's a point to living.

Sadly, this is exactly one of those things in life where, if you want something, you're going to have to act as if you had it so that you can get it. To feel motivated, you're going to have to just do it anyway and then when you produce results, and feel all exhausted (but happily so) at the end of the day, you'll be all happy to sit on your front porch with your feet on chair puffing your evening smokerings (or better, if you're actually a wizard, Harry). You'll possibly sometimes feel rip-roaring for the next day to come so that you can become even more happily productive.

To overcome procrastination, you have to act as if you didn't procrastinate. It is the only way.

4 comments:

  1. I agree. As a very productive and motivated person, I can attest to the momentum that behaving in this way builds. Even if you have to fake it for a while, I suggest doing so, as habits form in this way. I was just watching a wonderful YouTube video this morning from PhilosophiCat on Nihilism and Nationalism, and I think it relates also to what you're talking about.
    (Also, I think I might never have mentioned that this is "washingtonslastfrontier" from Instagram. I followed your link to your blog and subscribed some months ago after enjoying some of your comments there on my posts).

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    1. I think this notion of motivation also (for me) ties into the beauty thing in the comment (on another post) you made before this- for me, it's hard to be motivated if I know what I'm doing is not 'worthwhile', which for me often means beautiful, not uglifying things. I struggled dealing with the rote, clinical, and very 'technical' world we live in... it puts me in a funk. Granted, I shouldn't be blaming the world for this; I should learn that I am allowed to see that beauty as a Real thing that should be promoted. It was hard to stand with that notion in my mind in the face of where I lived, and what my family typically told me when I mentioned what I imagined- 'it's not realistic.'

      (I guessed it was you from your picture. Thanks for subscribing; I'm glad you're here.)

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  2. "When a certain person in anxiety of mind was often wavering between hope and fear, and, on a time, being overwhelmed with grief, had prostrated himself in prayer in the church before a certain altar, he resolved these things within himself saying: 'If I did but know that I should still persevere' ; and presently he heard within himself this answer from God: 'And if thou didst know this what wouldst thou do? Do now what thou wouldst then do, and thou shalt be very secure.' And immediately, being comforted and strengthened, he committed himself to the divine will, and his anxious wavering ceased."

    from "The Imitation of Christ"

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