something I’ve been meaning to do for a while

A few days ago, I was having a conversation with a colleague about procrastination.  At the time, I was in what I could only describe as a procrastinatory frenzy, taking care of innumerable small tasks when I should in fact have been marking exams.  (And not to worry, the exam marking is now done and so this is not yet one more of those small tasks of which care is being taken.)

A short while later, my colleague sent me this, an epic tale of sorts of the adventures of the Rational Decision-maker, the Instant Gratification Monkey and the Panic Monster, and it resonated deeply with me.

In particular, the description Mr Urban gives in part 2 matches so perfectly some of my own discussions with myself that I might have thought I was being watched or bugged (my Instant Gratification Monkey is fond of spy thrillers and police procedurals).  But then, looking at the number of likes and shares for both parts, I realized I was but part of a much larger community than I had thought possible.

And so, the doing.  I have a long list of projects, some (as my friends will attest) that were begun far far too long ago to remain in their current uncompleted state, and a long backblog of these for these pages.  And so, I will move from planning to doing.  I will crawl through the critical entrance and make my way through the dark woods to the tipping point.  I will swim in the river of flow.

And I will fail, at first.  Habits are hard to break, and my Instant Gratification Monkey is strong and clever indeed.  But I will persist, and I will bear the words of Samuel Beckett in my head:  Try.  Fail.  No matter.  Try again.  Fail again.  Fail better.

~ by Jim Anderson on 30 January 2016.

5 Responses to “something I’ve been meaning to do for a while”

  1. […] and a seemingly insatiable desire to procrastinate.  For more on that, I direct you dear reader to this if you should feel the itch of curiosity and the need to do something other than the thing you […]

  2. […] something I’ve been meaning to do for a while […]

  3. […] and all for different ways.  Taking the first step can be hard, particularly if we have been procrastinating taking that first step.  But the tenth, the hundredth, the ten thousandth steps, these can all be […]

  4. […] written about procrastination before, but I haven’t really confronted this knack I have for procrastination; it might be […]

  5. […] Procrastination is a topic I’ve written about before and think about a fair bit, though often when I should perhaps be doing something else. I think the title is an oxymoron, but I hope by the end of the next few hundred words, I’ll have persuaded you that it’s not as much of an oxymoron as it might seem now. And if you’re interested, some earlier reflections on aspects of procrastination can be found here and here, and here and here, and here and here. […]

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