Why is the present so alien and distance from us, like the Martian landscape, the rings of Saturn, Jupiter’s moons, and the outer reaches of the Milky Way? So distant is today that those alien shores of tomorrow are closer to our present thoughts, our presence missed by this day, right now.
We take something negative from the past and give it greater weight by bringing it into the present. Why go back to the seat of your failure now?
I look at the opportunity in the face, but my held perceptions of prior failure stay with me. My current perceptions of what might be an opportunity will be skewed on this seeming failure or lack of success in the past. I am putting yesterday between then and what I could have now.
I might be using past failure as a shield to slide from present opportunities.
Come out from under the waterfalls of negativity. Stop getting caught in the catch 22 from yesterday and that distant future. Why ambush the present with yesterday and tomorrow?
Kennedy said we’ll go to the moon before the decade if over. If you don’t start to move now when are you ever going to get to the moon? When is your lift off date?
I go to a restaurant I have to trust the cook. If there is some reason that I shouldn’t trust the cook, I should be aware of this possibility. What can happen is if you have been operating in an environment of distrust, this can be counter to other personal projects of importance that require personal trust. The cascading negativity bellows into the future and inhibits my ability to move forward in trusting the present.
I go to an amusement park today. All the rides are open and I can go on any one I want today as I brought a ticket that includes the cost of any ride. What rides will I choose and which will I choose to go on more than once? If I get on a ride I don’t like, with all the other rides in the park, why wouldn’t I just try other rides and forget about the one I don’t like. If I find a ride I like, why not go on the ride again. It’s my day at the park and I paid for all the rides right up front, so it’s just a question of what I want to do and where I want to go.
Break some patterns at least for awhile. If you have to read the news everyday, take a break from it. Even take a break from some of the good and positive things that you do want to keep going, because breaking patterns get you perspective that the present is here whether you stay with this pattern or not. You can live in the present another way without necessarily following this or that pattern.
You might be quite upset for the reason things went wrong, it is not only that things went wrong but the reason seems like it could have been controlled and overcome and it wasn’t. It might have gone wrong for another reason, if that is any consolation. The reason however may not be enough to close the wellspring of what you still have the offers into the situation and you can still give this another thought or even another try.
It is amazing how one thought can stop us and keep us from proceeding even on what is actually a clear path. Whether we take this path or not, to superimpose one thought against a clear path is not the best reasoning for making decisions not to proceed now or in the near future. Why is one thought carrying all the weight? I could be wrong about my one thought and if you ever play the horses you will realize that your thoughts can be errant.
I might be looking to proceed or go forward only if it can be 100 percent correct. This could be a bit of a hangover from getting graded in school all the time and having too much exposure to the idea of correctness. What you want to do if you are dealing with less than 100 percent correctness, say even 99 percent, is to actually give yourself permission to proceed and not be correct by just leaving room for correction. If you have to be 100 percent correct, than leaving room for correction is not a concept that matters. But it may matter if you are proceeding into murky waters for you and leave room then for correction with an understanding that you know you aren’t 100 percent correct on this, and you will just leave the room to adjust to corrections as they arise including heading for the hills if the need arises.
I have been working on building those artificial walls between the present and future, and maybe most of it was wasted time and energy.
I might be vacillating between now and never. I keep saying I’ll hold off and I say that today, I say that tomorrow and I keep saying that until days, months and finally years passed and I’m still holding off. Finally, I have held off for the duration.
One concept that might not get us going in the present is the concept of earning my way. As good as that is, it can become the built in excuse. For example, if I work double time, I am earning double the money. So everything is okay, because I am earning my way. In the meantime, some other things that might have come my way just aren’t going to because they are opportunities that can’t be earned. I might be working indoors, earning my way and I miss the golden sunset, never to be seen again in that exact formation. So the concept of earning doesn’t necessarily get us off the hook on procrastinating and it can just as easily be used as a haven serving the true avoidance and a safe cover not to. The lauded work ethic seems to justify working your life away into oblivion from anything else that might matter to you that did require separate time blocks from earning your way, especially when the reality was, much of the ride offered was free.
We might as well look to move off some of these concepts that have gotten us nowhere or in a place where we are standing still.
I have these qualities. I think they are good but they will be worth more in the future. I do have these qualities, but I will hold them for the future, I will let them kick in at a later point. I procrastinate on the very qualities I am aware of possessing now. Increased awareness might be one step I can take that will hold me up in the present.
I might also be brushing against every obstacle down that road. It is like the skier who hits every obstacle down the hill while trying to ski for the gold. Maybe avoid some of those obstacles on your path, ski around them.
I might also be involved in ongoing patterns of procrastination. For example, I tell someone I will get back to you when I finish this book. Then I start another book and I say I’ll be ready to go when I finish this book.
One of the first concepts I need to grab a hold on is the concept that I am ready for this. Whatever I might be facing in the present, deep down I am looking into a prism that is saying, am I ready or do I need to delay to another time and place. What I can do is correlate my thinking to times and places where and when I was in fact ready, and go back to that feeling of readiness and somehow recapture that. As time goes by, we might not improve on the concept of finding ourselves able and ready and in fact, even with success in a given area, our overall pattern might deteriorate and fall into a position of feeling not ready in a good number of areas in our lives.
I might be caught in a big drift. Everybody is procrastinating and so am I. The whole town or whole city is waiting and I get caught up in this as well. I don’t want to press those buttons until everybody else does the same. Nobody is going to the beach now at this present moment because of the weather forecast. In the meantime, the sun is shining and the forecast might be wrong after all. But it is a small world after all and just about everybody heard the forecast for that big storm in an hour or two and nobody is steadying to shore and hitting the seas.
I might be halfway involved with what I am procrastinating on already. I am at seashore, with my surfboard in hand and I am looking at the inviting surf. Will I go all the way?
I might be letting prior failures and disappointments transfer themselves to the present, dictating from the past into my present meanderings.
I might be procrastinating because I don’t have the very thing I am procrastinating on. I am disappointed I am not dating so I hold off on dating. I am disappointed I haven’t been on the golf course and because of this I can’t get myself going and get to the golf course. I am in a bad mood cause I haven’t traveled any place in a while so I don’t feel like taking this trip.
I might be procrastinating on something so much and for so long that it has ultimately formed into a self-imposed exile. The present times become another vacant valley. I said I would run, date, travel later, but later became later and later and I eventually exiled myself from those plans. I kept saying tomorrow I’ll play baseball again but I never did, and I exiled myself from the sport. It becomes established tradition not to do anything.
I might be procrastinating over what amounts to a small fragment in the big picture. I am holding off on any summer activities until I lose 5 pounds. Well, many good times aren’t going to wait for your conditioning to improve. I have something going for me that I am bringing from the now territory into the no territory by my continued delay. At least consider the relative size and importance of the issue on which you are basing your delay. I am holding a ticket to see the whole world and I am holding off on using the ticket because a few small things have gone wrong,in the meantime the bigger picture remains intact. I refuse to break the code even though I might have enough to do so without all of the information.
I might be putting a real premium on the future based on assumptions, which could prove to be errant. At least begin to recognize where on the time line I am putting the premium so that I can make adjustments in my premium if I want to. But if I don’t realize that I am putting a premium on the future by approaches I take, then I can’t begin to readjust my thinking to a present day mode if wanted opportunities are in the present days without first recognizing that I am involved in premium thinking that might be knocking me out of today’s box and these chances.
Today included part of my allotment of time. For example, if I someone gives me a million dollars and one day to spend it, it might be less valuable than if they give me a million dollars with a hundred days to spend it. If I start now, I can have more time.
Then I may have lost my starting point, so I don’t start at all. I wanted to just drink water for this month, but I didn’t do this the first week of the month, so because I lost my starting point, I forget the whole idea. I wanted to have someone special in my life months ago, and that would have been my starting point, but since this didn’t happen, I forget the opportunities of the present because once my well thought out plans that had that starting point fell through, I am still thinking about the lost starting point rather than founding a new one.
I might be searching for a completeness that leaves me vacant towards real but partial opportunities in the present. I want the full piece of pie or nothing. An incomplete experience, or incomplete insight can work into something meaningful in the present. I want full-fledged only, when I can take some of the good in now, catch some rays of this sighting of sun. An incomplete road still might be in a search able realm, a stretch of coast that I can actual be present to, participate in, although it might not be the complete stretch of these coastlines, a partial view might be afforded and I could also just take what I get.
I might be waiting for the signs, but indeed maybe I have some signs already, I have some thunder for this, but I just don’t see this as a sign. Doing nothing or waiting could sometimes be the same or get you equivalent results. Try to tap into some of the good signals that are on your bright side. Everybody has their bright side and many situations also potentially have a bright side that can’t be found by procrastinating.
I might be working with more exclusive definitions of success when I could be including more from my own personal landscape as I seek not only to find success but to properly define it to what would be a success to me. Smaller dealing might be a success to me if I feel I have had limited positive experiences to springboard from. The people I’m comparing myself to have been advantaged by their successes which operate as a platform and if I don’t have that platform yet, maybe I shouldn’t compare and delay based on others having that platform. Instead of trying to emulate their achievements, I can find little building blocks that work for me and then decide from there.
I might begin to procrastinate by setting up high expectations that might seem difficult to meet at any time soon. I can’t seem to meet with these high expectations so it is just as easy to sit down on them and let them go away rather than reformulating more tempered expectations. I’ll conveniently put things off indefinitely because it never looks like I’ll be able to jump over the bar that I set for apparently to high for myself. Lower some of those bars to you can get a foothold on something.
I might end up like the prize fighter who didn’t anticipate the right cross and didn’t adjust to the movements and get into the better stance. So anticipation and the related adjustments can be important in relating to procrastination issues. If I’m anticipating that I am going to procrastinate, then I should made some adjustments towards undoing that stance.
I might feel I am compromising something by proceeding to the present, I am compromising my future by proceeding now. It might be that message got spread widely and I think every other thing I do will be compromising my future. I don’t distinguish on a case-by-case basis as to what might do this. If everything I’m going to undertake compromise my most idyllic visions of my future, I should also realize that the imperfect world I’m in also has an influence both now and in the future so I can’t be totally picky about when imperfections will arise from outside influences, over which I have little control.
I might go to the beach and one day a rogue wave comes that is tremendous is size, maybe 25 feet high from out of nowhere. Every time out from then on I expect another rogue wave although every wave if different and it might have been the first and last rogue wave I’ll ever experience.
I might have less room for error in some scenarios if I procrastinate too much. For example, in an academic setting, if I hold off on writing my paper till it is almost due, I might have less time for wanted changes, further research, possible corrections, or the accumulation of additional information. If I start studying for a test at the last moments, I might find that I do need additional time that just isn’t available to me now. If I had started earlier, I would have more room for error, more time to adjust the situation and more accumulative study time and preparation.
I might have points of feeling inferior or even an outright inferiority complex. I feel fundamentally different from others. I might want to review this in the specifics. I am hesitant to get on the basketball court. I begin to think why I am hesitant. Am I deficient on my shooting, passing, or my ability to see the court. In the total review, I find I am deficient in height, I am only 6’7 and everybody else is about 7 feet.
I might have things on delay for something that is in fact going to be a ongoing effort. I say I can’t socialize because I have to keep up with current events. My effort to keep up with current events is going to be ongoing if I want to do this. Many times, I might be procrastinating even though what I am procrastinating for doesn’t have an endpoint that I can distinguish. I say I’ll call you as soon as I see all the new movies. There are always new movies and my efforts to get to them is going to be ongoing. Look at everything you are involved with that is related and try and see what in fact is an ongoing matter that is going to be there whether I procrastinate or not. The sun is shining for me whether I take that advantage or not is up to me.
I might look at my goals. It is a tall order but I could rate my goals based on height. My tallest goal should take precedence over the shorter goals if the taller goal can be had. If I can reach those heights, there is no reason not to attach to the shorter goals that might be reachable but prioritize the tallest goals if you get the chance to achieve this goal now. The tallest goals are the ones that mean the most to you. What would be big for you now?
I might never get every particular piece to this particular puzzle and what then? But let’s look at this puzzle and what pieces or piece am I missing and what piece do I think I need that I am or think I am missing. A second look might show me that yes, I do have this piece, but I have been hiding it from myself to keep the excuse not to go ahead in place, because if I acknowledge that I really have that piece, I lose my excuse and then I am holding off without an acceptable excuse.
I might say how much of this do I have left. I might think of this in relation to money and I might expect this to run out. So I will save for the future. Even my money supply, even if well spent up now, might quickly replenish itself in the future but I don’t see it that way. Things do replenish and I just have to believe that. But I might apply this same mode of thinking to other things, like intelligence, looks, a sense of adventure. My sense of adventure if not applied now might not be with me in the very same way in the future. My intelligence will probably not suffer into the future from being used right now and I don’t need to save this for the future like I would save money for the future. Often, my supply of money would quickly replenish for the future even if I don’t win the lottery. My intelligence should not deplete its supply even if I use a lot of it today. Why would I want to save my good looks for the future unless I think I will get better looking every day which was in the title of Joe Namath’s book which was titled “I can’t wait till tomorrow because I getting better looking every day.”
I might think I need endurance to get to the future but I need endurance just to get myself into the present. I need those good qualities now.
I might want to accelerate on my interests in some area. For example, they had a go ape all day at the movies where you could see all 5 of the Planet of the Ape movies back to back. Or maybe you want to load up on the movies. So this acceleration might push me forward and onward into an interest that I have been previously hesitant to explore. I feel I can learn a new language but I didn’t know how far I could go with this until I accelerated my studies. At the same time, this acceleration could result in a stoppage of other interests. I am working every waking hour but then this could result in a deceleration of other interests. I might be interested in sailing but I am always in the office. My acceleration on my office work has resulted in a deceleration of my other interests, which might begin to wane for the lack of watering and interests that aren’t cultivated can begin to fade.
I might want to double check the word success and find out what exactly that means. It might be that I feel I have been a failure but I might have had mini successes or patches of success within the midst of failure. A second look might show that I did progress or I did go forward and complete something that I intended to complete, but those feelings of success didn’t great me at the finish line with the fanfare that is from others but I still need to identify the success I did have within the midst of all the chaos.
I might want to introduce a time element to my definition of success. I win the lottery but I have only an hour to spend the money? Suppose I win a trip to Rome but I have only 4 hours to see it and it will take that much time just to begin to find my way around. As I reduce on going forward, I may also be reducing the time I had for this, which may have had a much longer and wider frame, had I brought the picture into the present sooner.
I practice seeing lack when I could practice seeing abundance. Limitations are imposed now for the supposed sake of the future. But it isn’t always easy to lift off from those limitations later if because those are the confines you have established, the establishment starts to rule and rules become the law and the law tells me what to do and not to do. You probably need to let go of some limitations now if only for the reason that limitations are something that we tend to hold on to, and propel into the future. My lack of involvement in this becomes self limiting and I just continue with limits that hinder me if and when the winds of opportunity do change into a direction that I can ride with. Consider that you can go with fewer limitations from now into the future so bars from the past will not bother you as you go forward. Because there tends to be maintenance of the status quo it is often not easy to throw off those limitations I have established even when they no longer apply or have less applicability now, because the limitations I formed where based on what my experience was and if I had other experiences I may not have found myself so matched up with these limitations and I might have otherwise matched up with good chances and exploring talents better had I had different experiences which would have caused me to see what I could bring forward. I might have arrested my development right into the future by imposing too many limitations and deactivating early on some good pursuits.
I say I want a social life. I am working round the clock. Then years go by and I say, well, I didn’t have a social life. Should I have seen this coming sometime in the now? Right about then. Could I have put the brakes on this lifestyle a bit and tried to socialize a bit? It doesn’t have to be a full launch but you can dip your toes in the water. I thought if I was so good that I would be rewarded with a good social life, but didn’t that require some time to do that? Isn’t that found on some parts of the time line too? I could have managed some of my time for this into the present. The now I never got to or fell off that time line? I didn’t write in socializing on my lineup card, how did I expect it to get an at bat. Or does that come at the end of the movie? But I wanted to enjoy the whole movie.
I want to go to Rome. The reason is I want to see in person some of the historical monuments and structures including the Roman Coliseum. I have a reason and I need the time to support this reason. I need time to take the trip and support my good reasons. If I have reasons, what do these reasons support? My reasons are supportive of doing what? I hold off because I have to have a reason well you do have a reason. Another reason says not to, but the reason to do this is still a reason that might still be standing there and not going away. I can try to make that reason a standing shadow, but I can’t wish it all the way away.
I want to pay attention now because even if this is turning out to be my worst day, my worst year, you never know when your breath through point is coming.
I want to proceed now but without allowing for any mistakes. Of course I don’t want to make major mistakes but if I am not allowing for any mistakes that approach might land me far into the future, especially if I am looking for a mistake free present. I have got to consider that I will make mistakes, despite my great talents. Even school has a catch 22, the best students don’t make “mistakes” and they get perfect grades. This approach might be leading to less risk taking or exploration in the pursuit of knowledge. The key is too allow for mistakes while trying to avoid the more punishing mistakes. If I try and get everything I want on a mistake free basis, I am less likely to get everything I want. v
If I am anticipating things aren’t going to be that great, it is more than likely, I will follow the course of procrastination in even trying to outright get out of the situation. However, of course, what I am anticipating for may have a degree of error and must involve a lack of foresight because I don’t have a crystal ball and a lot of what I am involved with would have either a greater or lesser degree of predictability. That predictability can affect by my choices, but I can’t get full predictability not matter what I do so reliance on predictability has inherent limitations in that predictions don’t always follow into wanted outcomes. It could also be even worse than I expect. But let’s not be negative. One reason to go forward is to generate a new block of interest than can be referred to further down the road. For example, if you study an unfamiliar subject, from this point on you can refer to this and possibly discover and enhance a new found interest. I can bring in some momentum to something new by a relatively brief but intense focus that will help carry me into a new realm, that I now have a better backdrop and I can leave this subject and revisit it again with having had some experience that is partly knowledge and experience based.
If I am procrastinating in one area or on one thing, I am probably doing it in other areas. I am involved in several cycles of procrastination both large and small. What I need to do is look at each cycle and do something to break each cycle, even if it is small. Say I haven’t been in the ocean the whole season, I could go in the water for ten minutes and break that cycle. I haven’t read in the area of fiction in two years, I could read one short story and break that cycle. I haven’t golfed in 5 years I could play a round and break that cycle. Even if you don’t read fiction again or golf again for a while, you accomplished breaking a cycle.
In contemplating applicable resources, why save resources that can be applied into the present to some distant shores you may not even reach? If I can pour some of these potentially applicable resources into the present, it might it might be like pouring cement into a new road that I can travel on into the future and often times pouring out resources doesn’t mean I have less for tomorrow anyway. I can apply some of this to the present without saying I’m withdrawing from the future by doing this.
For example, I have the interest in traveling. Why not travel sometime in the nearer future, rather than years down the roadway. I can use this applied resource of interest in travel and apply it now without compromising this interest for the future. I can pour some water on this now and pour more water on this later.
If I go to the store, and buy something, say a computer for 1000 dollars, I feel I have depleted my some of my resources of money. Therefore, I might delay on buying a computer. But it might not be true that although I did indeed spend 1000 dollars, that I will have automatically depleted that particular resource. Maybe the computer and it’s availed information will save me much more than that. But this idea of depletion deals with assumptions as to available resources. My assumptions of depletion seem to carry over into many areas. I assume a given set of resources for my hoped for endeavor, which will be depleted with use. So I save these resources for a rainy day. But my assumptions might be incorrect to the matter at hand. An example would be social skills. They might become more polished with the use. There might be a restoration, implantation, and accentuation of those prior qualities. As I use it, I gain even more. I harvest more abundance by not delaying, but proceeding. Indeed, I might be correct that the depletion effect will take place, but I can’t be 100 percent sure of this and I need to monitor the situation as I proceed to see what forces are at work and how they are working. I might find myself at the opposite pole of depletion and find increasing yields as I go forward. I might find I do have game, like Mike has game and not only for one game. I might not have even begun to harvest my crop of ideas for this and the field is so plentiful that depletions are not an issue at all and I am widely mistaken about depletion. There is so much out there now, that the issue of depletion isn’t something I can get to even if I wanted. If I take the spot I’m in right now, and imagine how this place looked and was two hundred years ago, then I have felt some of the visages of the past, and maybe I can get a firmer realization of the present ground I am standing upon. Who if anybody was standing right here 200, 500, one thousand years ago, but your here now and do something about it.
If some things or even one thing is going well now, why can’t these other areas go well now? For example, I have a good moment now when I enjoy the hike along the shore. I ‘m enjoying this movie right now I am enjoying reading this book right now or even this one page of this book right now. Why can’t I also enjoy something else I am interested in right now? Why am I trimming today’s list of the thinkable and obtainable goods and reducing my chances on the tree of possibility. If have enjoy a good run in the park now, then why can’t I enjoy traveling the world now, or why can’t I be rich now if that’s what I want. If even one thing is going well now, maybe all things can go well now as favor also has a way of spreading.
If something has that, much vibrancy for you then the phone is ringing for you now on this. I have to assert that now is important, whether I can get to the now in an advantageous fashion is often a matter of being assertive on my part. I can be assertive about so many things, why can’t I be assertive about now being important? Sometimes I am told otherwise, be patient, wait, this is for another time. What they are telling me might not be what’s best for me and right now, the present time might be my best bet, after all, everybody is only guessing as to what and when to bet on or what and when her best bet is going to be. If predictability isn’t going to be found in the future, why should I let the lack of it bother me in the present? I might bargain away the present for many different reasons but one of them is a lack of assertion along with being told by the so called experts that better times are around the bend if I just be patient, as if they have that view of what’s around the bend themselves.
If there is a reason for this, this exploration, this pursuit, this idea this wanted experience, then I should lend the supporting time to the reasons. If there is a reason then make the time on that basis. Make the time somewhere near the reason. I have a reason now, then make the time now.
If two people are in say a club in the Hampton’s and each is anticipating the other will take the initiative and approach to the other person, both might end up missing the conversation. Because both are anticipating the same thing, neither takes the initiative of the first move. Don’t just anticipate, also take action as you gather your resources because by anticipation only you are not using all of what you have. The fighter anticipates the punch, but also throws the punch.
If you are going to make some changes or do things differently, don’t apply the same standard to something you are starting out with as what you have already been doing for a while and maybe doing it well. For example, I have been a great farmer and I want to fly jets, do I expect to start out as an expert in flying jets. I want to leave some room at the starting line. I am a great doctor but I want to be the best selling novelist. I may get a running start on this but I still need to not apply the same standard of success at the start of this that I have for being a doctor.
In the present, I might be trying to marry some ideas and approaches that just aren’t very compatible. I can take in disparate views but are all the disparate approaches going to work for me now and I might want to find a more central thread and theme where I find more consistency within my overall approach. If I want to be more creative, I can apply this concept to just about anything I might endeavor upon. If I am going to be smart about this one area of concern, then why not be smart about most if not all areas of concern. I can stay sharp for the duration. I can keep my arrow sharp for every bird of prey.
In thinking about the now, what would I want to apply to my life on a daily or almost daily basis and is there something I had been doing that I think I’m still doing now. There is the rule of inclusion, I want to include this, therefore my rule is that I do include this. Now not only deals with what we might do in the future but what we once did and may not have brought in from the past into the now. Something we did do but left out in those already traveled seas of yesterday.
In thinking about the pieces that I don’t have, I should also review the pieces that I do have and I might also consider why I also haven’t moved on them as well. Because if I haven’t moved on the pieces I do have, what is the evidence available that I will move if and when I get the pieces I don’t have.
Increased awareness is one factor in getting us in the now. Becoming more fully aware of what can be now is helpful towards actualizing the present. I am aware of this having meaning and mattering to me now, maybe I can actually do something about it now.
Instead of just mumbling along, why not give yourself a chance for a big launch? I might be hiding out from bigger chances and opportunities in the routine, which I know I can follow, but the safest course isn’t always the widest course either. The big launch is something that might net me much more right now, if it does fly. For example, maybe I am a high school student and I want to be rich in a few years. Maybe I could write that popular novel which could be a bestseller now and would represent a big launch which is potentially obtainable in the now. Even as I high school student, I now have the same access to imagination and a typewriter that I will have later on, so I can try to manifest a best selling novel now, without the benefit of some sort of scholarly degree
I can take a situation and try to see as I begin to go through it whether it is a high potential, or might involve more medium or low potential according to the criteria that I have set up or that matters to me now. If I am going on a date and I am looking for good conversation, I can see at the beginning maybe if this situation can have high potential for good conversation. If I have a good written dialogue with someone, maybe I can predict high potential from that for good in person discussions. But I don’t want to automatically scratch medium potential options, in that I am choosing only for high potential options and I just don’t have to do that, it is not a requirement that everything I pursue has to have a high potential outcome. Because this outlook can start to get me into the trappings of procrastination, in that looking for high potential involves work, which I don’t always feel like doing, so I just avoid or procrastinate instead of just figuring on medium or even low potential and it doesn’t take as much work to figure that out. Then the high potential could be rather obvious, but I think it is such a rare bird that I get anxious and spill the cup that is handed right to me.
It is interesting that people read things with a bias and sometimes this might be an improper bias. I might want to mold my interpretation to the view I am already holding. Maybe I am reading the present with an improper or an inappropriate bias to the future, I am reading into the things with a bias that my time is unlimited, the opportunity is endless, and the building for “future” is what matters. I might feel this is a road I could take today or a road that I could take ten years from now. I can’t say for sure exactly what the tilt of my bias is and is going to be, but I need to realize that I might be bringing a real bias into my objective readings of the present and what it could mean to me right now. I then justify a pass based on a bias or prejudice towards the future that might be inappropriate to the paths I really do want to take now.
It might be better to have the concept of some things as working for me now. I am running or lifting weights in the gym, not only is this a seed for the future but also it is helping me right now. I am reading a good book or article and this is working for me right now and right now is central to me.
It might be that the change I make would be a better bet. What I am involved with right now is more of a long shot. That is the paradox, what I am doing now, what I am familiar with might be more of a long shot than something else I could do that is a better bet and much less of a long but would involve the dreaded change.
It might be that you are looking for all your rewards only at the finish line. I ran the New York Marathon and I was wearing a shirt with a picture of John Glenn an American Hero. Right at the beginning of the race in Brooklyn, a spectator yells out to me, hey John Glenn, hero. The way he looked as he said it was in such a humorous NY fashion that right then and right there it was worth the day at the very beginning of the race.. As I proceeded to run, I enjoyed the crowd watching, I enjoyed watching and trying to pace with the fellow runners, many of the female persuasion, and I enjoyed observing as a fellow runner some of the costumes and outfits and sayings that some of the runners were wearing. I also had some subsequent references to my shirt as the American Hero, which I thought were amusing. I felt good running through the last few miles of the race but I ran right through to the finish line. But I had my rewards including right at the beginning of the race. After the race, when I took the train home a women on the train said she saw me at the later part of the race in Central Park while she was handing out oranges to the runners and she said I was running well. Although I felt tired then, it was nice to hear that someone perceived me as running well at that point. This was a post race reward, an after the finish line treasure that was unexpected. So you never know where the rewards are coming from or what exactly they will be so don’t pout that Santa isn’t coming to town when he may well be coming your way if you just get in the race and start running.
It seems that tomorrow takes precedence. However, is the type of tomorrow I am hoping for a guarantee from where I stand today? I am going to wait my whole life for this type of day when all will land at my doorstep?
It terms of procrastination, I can think about what I am missing. This might not only be in broad terms but in specific segments of what I am missing. Not only might I be missing the summer, but I am also missing this particular summer day at the beach where I could have had fun before the light of this day left me.
It’s a speculative society and some of this is evidenced for example by the popularity of the stock market. Of course I could speculate myself into the present. But often it works the other way. This speculation can be endless. With this, it’s more than easy to speculate the present right out of the picture. I can speculate myself right out of my lifetime as far as this goes. Right now, I have ten girls that might be willing to go on a date with me, but I speculate that there will be a hundred so there is no rush. Right now, I have 100,000 dollars in my pocket but I am thinking about the next million because I speculate I can get there so I delay on enjoying the 100,000 dollars in any way I feel fit. Today seems to have some opportunities but I speculate that tomorrow is going to be that much more interesting so I will wait until then. I speculate I can run a 4 minute mile if I train but I have to train over a number of weeks and for now I’ll just enjoy the thought rather than start the training now for that distant goal. If I have any trainability for this I could start the training sooner rather than later. I speculate I’m a great novelist in the making, I’ll look into it on my next vacation, which is scheduled for 2007, in the meantime I am a bit busy to write.
Jeff Bridges in the movie Squall afterwards said I should have seen it coming. He never saw the squall coming. Maybe we could excuse him for that lack of foresight towards the rogue sea. but what do you and I actually see coming right now that we can do something about as far as changing course a bit, or at least consider as to where it is leading us and what we can do about it now that gets us on a wanted course. And what else is coming that is going to represent an end to our hopes and pursuits in an area. If you do want to change course before “it’s too late” then keep an eye on the end of that road as well as the beginning. It’s almost like someone who wanted to travel some long road and see the country, maybe one road across the country, but then they get it on the last entrance. Okay, so I get to see that last section of scenery, but that’s not what I wanted, I wanted to see most if not all of it. Or if I am walking on a camel through the desert I can begin to realize this is not leading me to the beaches in the Pacific isles especially since the Pacific Isles is really what I wanted.
Maybe at the least, you have intelligence or an interest despite lacking the experience. You can go forward with that.
Maybe we can have more of an appreciation for the stretch of coast we are on now and what the opportunities are right here and now. This stretch of coast I am in now is beautiful, why can’t I see this in the present. I can bring more consideration towards what is present. I may need glasses in the future to see this coastline, now I can see her unaided. The next stretch of coast may or may not offer more, but this stretch can be good too.
Money deals with outer flow and it is not a matter of always reaching a static point. Many other criteria’s I might use for success also involve flow.
Most issues we deal with can be framed in a number of ways. A good amount of our issues can be framed as now or later, then or now. I might be postponing some things right out of my lifetime.
My backup plan could be the backup for several things. I might backup the activities of running, hiking, cycling, mountain climbing, playing tennis, all with swimming. I have one backup activity that applies to 5 other activities.
My goals stand before me like the Roman columns. Which goals stand tallest and if I get any chance on them now, I should take those chances. I keep thinking I am going to miss my targets and my goals that if I happen to find exactly what I want I still might pass it by because I simply just don’t believe it. It’s like catching that great fish and not believing your eyes. But if I find exactly what I want in 2003, why should I push off on it until 2010. Can I haul the fish in even if I can’t believe what my eyes are seeing?
My hold off point shouldn’t be contrary to my better plans. While I am holding out for my dream girl, I don’t want to hang with people that don’t further my personality and vice versa. I don’t want to be swimming in snake-infested waters if my better plan includes survival. I don’t want to be sitting on the couch all evening if my better plans include training for that marathon or socializing in person with new people. There are so many ways I can contravene my better plans by just going in the opposite direction instead of holding off closer to where I want to be. I can still do the sink and swim on my own rather that sink with somebody else’s bad boat.
My stocks crashed and my bank was robbed. Unbelievably, I am looking at financial distress. I brought a lottery ticket on my way home with my last dollar. Unbelievably it wins. Believe this, I am suddenly looking at a different financial scene right now and I might be looking at some trips around the world with my new funds. What I am looking at in terms of my future is very different based on one current event.
Not that those high expectations are always the wrong way to go. It might be that you can aim higher and you have the capacity to go for more. Maybe you are running an 8-minute mile and you would be capable of running a 4-minute plus mile. The key is you want to find the right ruder as per how you use expectations. You don’t want to be ruder less either as you want to maintain the ability to steer you way. However, you might have the gifts, but you want to hand the ruder to someone else, and let them steer your boat.
Now includes some of the remaining time left. It should be respected for its content, for what it holds in its hand.
Now is laced with so many intangibles that I just can’t totally quantify my way and in some fashion I would have to proceed to find out what those intangibles are going to be and how they going to operate. Those intangibles and how they will interact cannot be fully anticipated in advance of my interests. I cannot jump ahead of my interests because I have to see what the intangibles will be if or when I actually get there. And then I am so worried about the intangibles of everyone else and the situation and I don’t even know my own intangibles because I can’t totally see them until I get on the horse and see what rides.
Of course, I want to have the proper calculus as to what I could do. If I a waiting to swim, I might be wise in delaying my swim until the sharks swim by, if I want an uninterrupted swim. I also can have less room for error by rushing into a situation so there is a balancing act and there is no hard and fast rule as to what I should do but I should be aware that in some situations that delaying can cause an increase in the possibility of error and I have less room to make mistakes nor either have a cultivated an ability to deal with mistakes and make the quick adjustments.
Often what I am going to do is very affected by my current outlook. Things could possibly be great but I don’t see it that way and seeing is believing so I also don’t believe it that way and the way I see things, how things look to me has a real effect on whether I procrastinate from there. I can look back as to where and when I already procrastinated and ask myself, what did it get me?
On the one hand, we have more of an instant society where the consumer is served as quickly as possible. We have instant news and instant access on a number of levels. On the other hand, we have some procrastination and then eventually widespread procrastination in many important areas of people’s lives. There might be no clear and obvious punishment for procrastination so it’s easy just to continue with it. The punishment comes later on and its when you realize you fooled no one but yourself. I can get away with it but whom I am fooling if I am the one who is losing out. I get out of having all this fun, fulfillment, and finding the good times by procrastinating. I got away with it. There is a mixed message between meeting the consumer’s needs now and delaying those gratifications towards something that might be better later because they talk about a better future in those ads as well.
On the other hand, I go to the racetrack, and say I’ll bet three races and each is a tier. Then I say I only want the big race with the best horses. But if I just bet some money on the first race, I could win and I’ll have more to bet for the next tier, the next race, or the third tier, the big race. There can be opportunities on the first tier that can help us on the second tier, and then the next tier from there. The author of the Harry Potter series wrote her stories while on the dole. She took this first tier opportunity within the poverty and it actually created the second tier for her. She is now on the third tier, they estimate she could have a billion dollars in royalties from the movies and she retains the stories from the first tier, which created best selling books as her second tier and movie rights as her third tier. She had fun writing on the first tier, she enjoyed bestseller status on the second tier, and she can see her writings on the big screen in the third tier. She won some bets on each stage.
One manifestation of talent doesn’t tell you where you must go Those talents might also careen and cut across other fields and reach into new corners. If I am a talented pianist, that doesn’t mean I have to be at the piano all day.
One of the things that I have to deal with now is change. From now on, I will be involved in change. It might help to see the change what the change involves and try to see if you have already been involved in something similar that might be a familiar road and that you may have done successfully. What I am looking for is similarities that are good.
One thing that is helpful is too see what is currently going on separately. You can look at several areas of your life and what’s current or happening now as each having it’s own now aspect or current aspect. You might still be relating to the quiet person you were in high school but right now, you might be Ms. popular. I’m not keeping up with the newspapers right now, but I’m in great shape right now. You might not be as studious as you once were as another realm that you can look at to see what’s current, what is happing now. But the key is to not lump everything together and this can happen if one area isn’t going well now and you seem to let it affect other areas that are going well now, and then delay on all areas just because you are having trouble in just one or two areas. Don’t take money out of your pocketbook because your broke on some other matter.
Or maybe I am going on a date. I feel inferior to the situation. In examining the situation, it isn’t my conversational abilities but more that I feel that my green eyes should really be either brown or blue and I feel deficient to the situation because of my eye color, which isn’t the best. If I can list what I feel inferior about, this helps me to see also whether there are some things that don’t make this list of feeling or having less, which I don’t feel inferior about.
Our own gifts in many ways have already been paid for up front. I already have these gifts why not take them on the roads I like today, the rides I like today. If you have this great gift, why not realize it for yourself, since you are the intended user of the gift.
Procrastination relates to anticipation. Procrastination in many ways equals the ways I am anticipating. One thing I might have never anticipated was that I am free.
I am delaying on going to the beach this afternoon because I anticipate heavy traffic and the sun being too bright. But I am not 100 percent sure that either scenario will be true. Because of what I might be anticipating, I will tend to delay at times. As I begin to delay, I can consider what I am anticipating and whether what I am anticipating is absolute in its certainty or contains in part some conjecture, which might be erroneous. Much of what involves delay in ways in which I might anticipate even in the moment.
Realistically anything we are going to want to do is on some sort of timeline. Not that we have to rush, but things might rush past us as Bob Dylan sang, the Times they are a changing. As we are speaking, things are moving and changing. We don’t want to disparage what we have for what we want. We may or may not get what we want as time goes on but what we already have is something we can continue to work with into the future. In seeking new things, I don’t want to denigrate what I already have going for me or lose the identification I already have for this or those good points that are already there for me as I seek even more or something else. It helps to keep an eye on my own good points as I try to ascertain my way into the unknown. You might have many good points that you do not need to lose sight of as you look yonder. I can keep a good base while I am looking for more.
So where is the sun up for you and me? It might be that something hasn’t gone well for you but the sun is up now in this area and I need to realize that this is happening to take advantage of what is happening now. Actually it is not sundown and the chance is really here.
Some of the errors of procrastination might be that I feel I will have more control over the outer events later. I’ll find my way I say assuming today’s paths will always remain. I feel this quality will rate more in some future time. I might feel I’ll get a better stride into this later when the race is on now. I’ll enjoy this more tomorrow and I can save this for tomorrow. I would rather just wish for now, forget actual fulfillment now, and wish fulfillment will leave me with nothing to wish for. I might use patience as an excuse not to act. And if I get to fulfillment, I might find something there in that fulfillment that I didn’t know even about myself, and I’ll get away from procrastinating and into fulfillment as I found something new that I wanted there.
Some procrastination will always be taking place, what I want to do is begin to find out what really matters to me and find some of those roads to travel sooner rather than later. However, some procrastination is unavoidable, I can’t do everything and be everywhere now.
Sometimes if we have a problem, we don’t want to feel like we are alone with the problem. But at times it might useful to have a vision yourself as being alone with the problem, as if you are the only one in the world with this problem. From this vision of being alone with the issue or problem, you can begin to move into a solution because at a base level, it’s you and only you who is walking alone with this problem. It is my problem therefore I am permitted to seek remedies. I can claim ownership to the problem and thereby it gives me the right as the owner of this problem to do something about it and you are not looking at someone else or a shadow, it is you with the problem, oh well. It isn’t diffused into the crowd and hidden from you anymore and it is present to the now. Maybe this view of the situation will finally get me the permission I need to move into a solution.
The categories I am applying to myself might be inaccurate and therefore I procrastinate based on inaccurate categories I carry around in my head. For example, I might read sophisticated materials, I might have the taste for a Yuppie lifestyle, but since I lost every cent in the stock market I don’t have the money to present towards this lifestyle. However, I might better evaluate myself as a Yuppie based on the preponderance of my interests, my overall style, and my approach despite my current lack of money. The great baseball player breaks an ankle, and so he can’t even play baseball. But isn’t he still accurate is viewing himself as a great baseball player, in that once his ankle heals and he gets back to the diamond he will demonstrate that again. But if he doesn’t think he is a great player any more, he will hesitate to get back on the field and begin to procrastinate even on his love of the game.
The girl says on Valentine’s Day, I guess it will be another lonely year for me and that’s what I am looking at today. She meets someone she likes the very next day, suddenly and surprisingly she is looking at a very different year ahead. Instead of being alone the whole year now, she might have a whole year ahead of her with good companionship. The judge has given her a different verdict and she is looking at something very different now from the same point in time. She has arrived at a very different vantage point and is looking at maybe a year ahead with good companionship and many of her plans will be significantly different than she had imagined just a day before, a whole new landscape has rolled in on her.
The happy medium between the past and the future might be sometime around now.
The negotiations for a baseball players contract will be more weighed towards what he has done in the last year or two in a number of separate categories such as batting average, home runs, plate appearances, fielding percentage and so on. His most current season in many cases is most emphasized in the negotiations. Yet we as individuals might be negotiating our way off the way we were ten years ago. It is often better also to see how we are doing currently, and how we are doing currently in each separate category. I negotiate with the present within each separate category or sphere. Also weigh how you are feeling most recently, rather than years ago, how have you felt about this in the last year?
The trick is too review what you think qualifies you and what adjustments you can make in your thinking as to what really qualifies you to do this. By mistake you might be focusing at one area of what you think should qualify you, and this is detrimental to a better view of your own qualifications to move into or forward. Make a longer list of your own qualifications and see where they seem to be coming from in your thinking. There are some reasons or reasoning’s that do qualify you, or it wouldn’t be on your mind so much. You have to have some of the qualifications if you are procrastinating. I’m not procrastinating on being a major league baseball player if I can’t hit a baseball. I’m not procrastinating on being traveling to the mountains if I don’t like the mountains either for scenery or hiking. I am not procrastinating on going to a movie if its a movie I would never want to see, even if you paid me. It only qualifies as procrastination if it is something I might really have wanted.
Then a chance is a chance if it is now or later. Why say that this is not my best chance just because it happens to be now. Chances have value both right now and later, not just later. If chances for happiness has value later, it has value now. Why if something was valuable in the past, or is going to be so valuable in the future, why can’t it also be again valuable right about now? Whatever it is, it could have value on a daily basis or an ongoing basis if indeed I have seen it as valuable and there is a degree of predictability that way, that I will continue to see it as valuable. Maybe I want a lot of money, but maybe by the time I get there I will not see it as valuable or as valuable as I thought I would have.
Then am I seeing something coming right now? I hate my job, I loathe going to it. Can I say I see nirvana coming? Even if you are a hard worker a little personal vision can be added to your work ethic to help you chart a better or if needed a different course. I want to position myself into something that gives me a nice view of the future now. If I can’t get that nice view of the future now, I can hope that something else will happen that will give me that feel good view about the future that I can enjoy now. I want things to look good around the corner not only for then but also for how I feel now. If I am making a turn now, I want the views to be good even within the turn and even before the road opens to the virtual landscape of what can yet be.
Then how much do I want to fix before I proceed. Do I have to fix the whole world before I go to the ballgame?
Then I could examine my points of change. What could happen or might happen that might convince me to change and what and where would these points of consideration be.
Then I could take a situation as is, and go with it. The change I’m involved with is actually going with it instead of sitting on the situation, I could begin to live it.
Then I did play baseball but I stopped after I had a bad game. To get back into it, it is best to remember either the good games or the games I most enjoyed. Even one spot that I enjoyed, I can bring to remembrance, recapturing that feeling and maybe going back on the field again this time.
Then I might be operating on a need to know basis. I base what I will consider only on what I can know. Say I want to go to a party and I will not go unless I can know who will be there. If I can’t get the information, I might miss the party. I might be missing a lot of the parties right now because of my need to know. I might have things on delay for information I am never going to get. I am delaying on this for temperature readings on the Martian landscape. I am not going to get this info and its relevance isn’t there either.
Then I might feel threatened by the storms. All this bad news is right around me. I read about someone who failed in what they were trying to do and I think this will be me to. Improper identification takes place all over the place. I have formed a negative relationship with the news and in may in fact have had nothing to do with identification of my chances and me. I let someone else’s storms rain on my plans. I have had an infestation of negativity and I can’t seem to distinguish what if any of it has to do with me and by error I take on and take in a lot of it. There is an absorption factor for anyone, no matter how brilliant you are, you will be affected by informational intakes. You don’t even know why someone else got tangled up but just hearing it is a downer that gets you off the shining path for you. Therefore, I delay setting my sails, as I can’t see the sunny skies that might be there for me.
Then I might need to realize that I am always going to be in the middle of something and I can always use being in the middle as an excuse. In a sense, I am in the middle of living. I can’t always wait until I finish this or that, because no matter what I finish, I am still going to find myself in the middle in a number of areas. I need to think about being in the middle and operating on what I want to do from that particular standpoint. Yes, I am in the middle, but I can still do this despite finding myself in the middle. No matter what finish lines I do hit, I can’t get in on all the finish lines in many possible endeavors and or even the starting lines and I will have to jump in somewhere in the middle if I ever want to jump in.
Then I might think that everything is broken. I want to go to the beach today, I find my car is out of service, my friend who could normally give me a ride also has the same problem and the trains and buses are out of service, and I say everything is broken. Then I see my two bicycles are still in working order and I realize I can take a bike to the beach although it will be hard pedaling out there in the steamy weather. I was wrong however, in thinking everything was broken. I grant that some things are broken but everything isn’t broken and on that basis I can proceed with what is still working fine.
