A Brief Interlude (#9)

I feel a bit frustrated. Old habits die hard, even after better habits have taken root. But, it is in the struggle that we learn the most. Well, that is what I keep telling myself. With that said, I present this Monday's blog post.

(The image and artist below is not the painting I wanted to reference this week--I don't think people are ready to see that one, even though I think it's beautiful. However, this self portrait is incredible in its own right, so I decided to share it. Gustave Courbet painted is the painter. He has two others I found visually intriguing, one of which was banned from public exhibition until 1988--you'll have to scroll down his Wikipedia article in order to find it. The other painting is far less controversial, and more famous.)

      

A Habit Not Worth Keeping

Well, I must confess something. Over the past five months, I have built and maintained the habit of writing and publishing a blog post three times a week. For me, that has been a great accomplishment. Unfortunately, it has yet to inspire me to overcome a much older, more entrenched habit: procrastination. It is an ongoing struggle that has been with me since childhood. I wait until the last minute to finish a task, usually a creative one. Then I rush to complete it. Interestingly enough, I find that as I am scrambling to put something together with a deadline looming, I experience a burst of creativity. Nothing like urgency to get the blood flowing.

And most of the time it pays off. Well, sort of.

Rarely does the end product match my initial vision. And not because I discovered a better way of doing it. Instead of creating something profound, I spend more energy constructing a solution to a new problem: producing a less awesome version of the original concept in as little time as possible. Which is a great skill to acquire, for those moments when you really do not have the time to complete a task.

But, more often then not, I have plenty of time to achieve my initial goal. In fact, if I had not procrastinated, I would have accomplished more than one task in the same amount of time. Also, there is a lot of stress involved when rushing to reach a deadline. While I have learned to channel the stress somewhat, it is still there. And having even half the stress does not bode well for someone my age—it damages the mind and the body, and it takes longer to heal.  In addition, the disappointment of constantly not meeting expectations becomes frustrating and depressing. I have a vision of something great and beautiful, but because I procrastinated, the end result is a pale comparison. It leaves me empty inside. Once or twice is fine. But all the time? That just sucks. Finally, as I get older, the ideas become grander and more complex, requiring more time to come to fruition. However, as I enter middle age, time is more precious. 

I really need to plan better, and follow through sooner. That means building habits that will override a lifetime of procrastination.

What does any of this have to do with this post? Well, like most of my writing for this blog, I waited until the last minute to start putting my thoughts down. Over the past two hours, I found myself constructing some very important and meaningful things about kindness, humility, and critical thinking. 

I was on a roll, in the groove, creative juices flowing.

And then I looked at the clock. Time was passing by, and I needed to wrap things up so that I could go to sleep at a reasonable hour. However, ending the post where I was, or speeding things up, would produce a crappy result. Also, continuing on through the night was not an option—losing sleep would interfere with other habits and deadlines, messing up my week. Finally, and most importantly, this topic was very important to me. It is the first step in a new direction in my life. I was not going to let procrastination undermine it.

I did not want to fuck it up.

But I was not ready to postpone tomorrow’s deadline. Writing regularly for my blog was a habit that I was not willing to sacrifice. So, I shifted gears, and created this piece: not nearly as important as what I wanted to write about, on a subject that begs for better analysis and presentation. 

In the end, I can change. Maybe I will take this upcoming week to plan and execute more efficiently. Or at least learn ways to improve.

Tomorrow is a new day.

One day at a time.

It is what it is.