Yes, I am my own enemy.
I have lost count of the number of times have I have had this thought come across my mind. ‘I wish I had started learning it last year, I would have been a pro by now.’, ‘I wish I had started writing that book, it would have been done by now’. I wish I had, i wish ...
It’s not that I am unaware of my procrastination. It’s not that I don’t know the tools and ticks to beat this behaviour. I know it, and yet I do it. It’s like a curse that I am living. Destined to fail how much every I think I try. And there in that sentence lies the culprit - ‘think’.
Am i thinking right?
We think a lot. We constantly are in an environment that makes us believe that we should do better, act better and know better. Be it in our profession, our society, or with our friends and family. And in doing what the world wants from us, we have a simmering frustration building inside of us. We become restless because we want something for us. But end up doing other people stuff. Leading other peoples lives. We slowly drown out our own voices of decent till we finally just start to believe that we are not worthy of it (perhaps, some of us think that way). We look for the next distraction that will take our attention away form that misery.
It just got worst
That’s when we start to spend time on activities of watching, reading and listening. Wait a minute! ‘Are you saying that these activities are bad?’. They are if what do them on social media and entertainment platforms. These are like crack & companies like Apple, Netflix, Google and Facebook are like drug peddlers doing what ever it takes to keep you hooked on.
Get off these platforms (or at least cut it down by half). And see how blank your mind gets cause its been made to think. I know, I know ... you might be wondering, ‘you are now back at square one’. True, but now you can charter a new course and you have one thing on your side. Your time!
My wisdom grew a shoot
I started by taking up some simple items on my to-do list. First thing I did was learn swimming. Its been a wish list now for ages. It took me two months, but i could swim in the deep end of the pool. The only thing that I realised, age had taken away form me was my muscle strength. My coach advices me to start going to gym. So I did. The first few weeks was a painful experience. To add to it I had to change my eating habits and also quality. But I am glad I did as I not only am in better shape, but feeling fantastic.
What next? .... this is fun. I don’t want to stop. I quickly whipped out a notepad and started jotting down things I wanted to do. Simple stuff. Nothing too fancy or difficult. I had time and I was not gonna blow that away to a peddler.
Now that I have rejuvenated myself, I don’t want to stop this momentum. Writing, sketching, story telling, and much more on my mind. Remember, do stuff that excites you. It should not always be about doing things that will make money. Although, that too is important. But once you have a skill, you can figure what to do with it. More importantly, follow your instinct and passion. Things you learn and do (or even attempt at) will enrich you for life. They will inspire you to do be a better human being.
