It's 7:32 am, sort of overcast, and I'm sitting in bed typing when I should be out biking. Take out typing and substitute "staring at the ceiling, berating myself but nonetheless not getting out of bed" and you've got, oh, 3 out of 5 mornings in household Kinskey. I still can't decide whether this guilt routine is massively Catholic or massively post-modern, acute self-awareness. Hedge my bets and blame both. Ah fuck it, it's just human. Right? There is a Durer-woodcut-peasant in a painting somewhere, lolling with his leg hanging out of the covers, moaning while he future self, one panel over, is out tilling the fields, right? There's no evolved thought pattern needed, it's just a thing we do because we can.
Instead of biking then, this morning let's explore motivation and procrastination. Procrastination is more my specialty, so I'll start there.
Here is a simple, 100% reparable issue from the get go: my perfectly good alarm clock sits on my desk across the room, gathering dust on its buttons, dark and unplugged for months now. I bet if I plugged it in, set it and had to get up and cross the room to turn it off, that 3 out of 5 might come down to 2.5 out of 5. Instead, I use my phone for my alarm clock, which is plugged in right next to my bed, and in fact lays mostly in the region of the pillow or mattress next to my head - phone boyfriend! What this translates to in my daily routine is hitting snooze somewhere between 2 and (this is not a joke, oh god, I wish it was a joke) 18 times before I get up. Yes, it goes off every 10 minutes, and there have been at least two mornings where it was optimistically set for 5:30 am, and I managed to blow all expectation out of the water, catching snippets of whatever low quality sleep I could in 18 10-minute intervals until 8:30 am. You have to really be a seasoned veteran to be able to have the mental mumbling soundtrack going "Just get up, you know you're going to feel bad later, you're already pretty much awake, you're doing an Ironman, you might have anxiety on Mile 110 and blame it on THIS very second of procrastination, etc etc" and still be able to lose consciousness 10+ times. A logical segue to thanking my parents for signing me up for morning swim practice from the age of 8.
So why, having signed myself up for Death Race, am I comfortable not getting out of bed and doing the damn thing? Because.....there's always.....AFTER work! Yeah, you heard me. Yeah, I know I didn't do the 40 minute run I was supposed to LAST night, so I was already planning on doing the run tonight and the 1.5 hour bike ride this morning. So what if I do them both tonight? TV's in re-runs, I don't have kids and....yeah, whatever, back off. That's how it is in the real event anyway. Pfffsshh.
Ugh, why did I say this: "let's explore motivation and procrastination"? Motivation now? I have to explicitly talk about that, too? Just go back and read between the lines of the procrastination stuff, they're inverses. I'd love to sit here and explore more deeply and out loud what it's all about, but...I think I just feel a little frustrated with myself. What's THAT about? Why willingly not do something, knowing the not doing will make you less effective for having to deal with mental garble? Why do we have a hard time getting to the end of the road unless we toss some speed bumps and pot holes out for ourselves? What's wrong with just cruising down a freshly paved street? The inclination is to say we're creatures of plot and need challenge even in our daily routines, but man, doesn't that sound like a lot of ex post facto justification? I want to sit here and tell you the silent bargaining and thumb twiddling gives me time to really think about whatever I'm putting off, explore it, know it more and then do it right, but there's not a lot of cognitive processing that's going to qualitatively change the experience of going out for a bike ride, or, say, paying the utility bill. It IS a nice counterpoint for those days when you just spring up and get going - then those days feel like Victory, you walk around punching the air, You Are Rocky - and all you did was the thing you had to do. I'm sure someone more eloquent than myself has thought this through previously and more thorougly, let's go quote hunting!
Oh god, the quick Google brings back grim stuff! I might just go cry in the shower now:
"Procrastination is suicide on the installment plan." - this one isn't even attributed! It's just an internet asshole nugget.
"How soon 'not now' becomes 'never'." - Martin Luther. I really wasn't expecting a procrastination quote from M.L.; all I can see is him nailing the Theses to the church doors, except sitting at home drinking coffee for awhile first - this great historical moment of passion being deferred by whatever domestic excuse he can find...I'm finding this thought exercise really freeing, and its not just the sketch-comedy enjoyment of seeing Martin Luther in a robe and slippers.
"Procrastination is, hands down, our favorite form of self-sabotage." - Alyce P. Cornyn-Selby. Word.
"Procrastination is the grave in which opportunity is buried." - not attributed! Everybody chill out with the death diction!
This one is vaguely helpful in its gentle admonishment, and quite literally true today as I tack on the run from Tuesday, so I'll end with it: "Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday." - Don Marquis
See you when I get out of work, workout schedule!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
I feel like a dick posting this. But think of it is as proof positive that everybody has always procrastinated! Or think of it as proof positive that Edward Young, in 1742, was a dick! Anyway, this is from 'Night Thoughts':
Of human ills the last extreme beware,
Beware, Lorenzo! a slow sudden death.
How dreadful that delib'rate surprise!
Be wise to-day; 'tis madness to defer;
Next day the fatal precedent will plead;
Thus on, till wisdom is push'd out of life.
Procrastination is the thief of time;
Year after year it steals, till all are fled,
And to the mercies of a moment leaves
The vast concerns of an eternal scene.
If not so frequent, would not this be strange?
That 'tis so frequent, this is stranger still.
Of Man's miraculous mistakes, this bears
The palm, "That all men are about to live,"
For ever on the brink of being born.
All pay themselves the compliment to think
They one day shall not drivel; and their pride
On this reversion takes up ready praise;
At least their own; their future selves applauds;
How excellent that life they ne'er will lead!
Time lodg'd in their own hands is Folly's vails;
That lodg'd in Fate's, to Wisdom they consign;
The thing they can't but purpose, they postpone;
'Tis not in folly, not to scorn a fool;
And scarce in human wisdom to do more.
All promise is poor dilatory Man,
And that through ev'ry stage: When young, indeed,
In full content, we sometimes, nobly rest,
Unanxious for ourselves; and only wish,
As duteous sons, our fathers were more wise.
At thirty, Man suspects himself a fool;
Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan;
At fifty chides his infamous delay,
Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve;
In all the magnanimity of thought
Resolves; and re-resolves; then dies the same.
Post a Comment