Due to the fact that this is a venue for me to think I’m going to share my conclusion at the beginning of this post… this next paragraph is the last thing I’ll write.
What I’ve found is that as I get older my relationship with time, lack of things to really fight against, and the fact that the sun continues to rise has led me to procrastinate more. I’m not a puppet being led down a path, but these factors seem to have a big impact when I look at my own world today. What I’ve found is that by scratching my own itch I’m either more motivated or trick myself into doing the things I should, and YES I should do the things I should. That’s an easy one.
Why do we do what we do? More importantly why do we not do things we know we should? How do we motivate ourselves? I wonder often why I procrastinate. There are a lot of interesting ideas around this topic. Some people like Jocko Willink simply dismiss the entire notion of procrastination to rally around simple, but powerful, ideas like “get after it” and “discipline equals freedom”. For someone like him it’s a simple matter of procrastinating on procrastination. What a concept. I’ll procrastinate tomorrow. What’s interesting is that as I think about this doctrine I’m filled with thoughts like “that won’t work for me” or “that doesn’t fit”. It might not fit, but YES it will work. These simple notions do work. However, I don’t think it fits for me.
What about a different view? What about Tim Urban and the idea of a monkey distracting me from doing what I need to? How do I battle the monkey? Is this the reason why we don’t do what we should? That one seems to fit for me somewhat… this idea that there when there’s no deadline there’s no motivation seems to fit a bit more. However, I still find that I trade short term for long term all the time. I have a career that seems to be going well. I don’t necessarily like every minute of my job, but I constantly trade up for long term happiness there. I’ve also developed habits like meditation and exercise. These aren’t fun, but I don’t constantly procrastinate on them.I heard an interesting view on this today that’s new… Henry Rollins does what he does as a fight. Everything to him is a battle. He wants to prove everyone wrong, even when there’s no one saying anything. It’s just his way. It’s what fuels him. It’s hard to truly convey his view so if you’re interested I’d suggest listening to Joe Rogan’s podcast with him. You’ll get it. While I don’t think I want to prove the world wrong like Rollins I do find that I’m at my best when I’m battling against something. If I’m an underdog I work like crazy. If there’s a competition I’m in. What I find as I grow older is a few things that make this no longer optimal.
- My relationship with time has changed. It’s not a short term fight
- There’s nothing real to fight against
- The sun continues to rise
#1 is a key piece of my world view that has shaped why I do or do not do things. I’m sure I’ll explore this topic again at some point. There’s a lot more, but I’ll start here. Realistically as my relationship with time changes the short term fights have given way to longer term habits. I find that I am far less likely to stress over what I view as short term minutiae. Day to day matters a whole lot, but only because every single day is a building block to some future. I either get better or worse. There is no staying the same. As I look up further into the future though the small BS seems smaller, and what wasn’t BS now feels like BS. Things like returning email quickly truly don’t matter to me in a way I never anticipated.
There’s nothing real to fight against. I don’t have real enemies. I’m comfortable. I don’t know if that’s good or bad. It sure feels good, but part of me hates it. I don’t have real struggles. I could lose some weight for sure, but that’s not really a struggle against something. It’s growth compared to my former self, but at the end of the day I’m not really fighting anything.
The sun continues to rise… I find that as I get older days keep moving. I’ve had bad days and good days. Hell I got kicked out of school for a year. I lost ~20 lbs at one point because I couldn’t afford to feed myself. I got by sneaking food from my roommates in the smallest bites… the 2nd to last piece of bread. Don’t eat the end because that’s noticeable. Eat the next piece. No one likes that one and it’s easy to get away with. I still don’t know if they actually knew I took their food, but they definitely knew I wasn’t grocery shopping. I look back on those days with fondness. I had something to battle back then, and I won. However, the sun continued to rise at the same rate it does today. The longer I live the more I see the sun rise. I think that view of the world makes me less inclined to do the things I see as BS.
So where does all this leave me? I guess I’m at a place where I’m focusing on scratching my own itch. It’s important to me to do things I find interesting. This is about knowing myself in a way I haven’t before. This blog itself is me trying to scratch my own itch. It’s productive. I also find that as I scratch my own itch I’m more likely spend time on things I don’t want to. I stop procrastinating on me and then stop procrastinating on others. I’m not sure where this leaves me or where it will take me, but it’s an interesting route. So far what I’ve found is that I have an itch for new things. I’ve found that if I keep a constant rotation of things in smaller sprints I’m much more likely to feel like I’m scratching my own itch. For me it’s as small as going into work with a new mindset every few weeks, or trying new diets. I’ve realized I’m not searching for the best diet. I’m just experimenting, and that’s fun.