In an example of synchronicity just today I was pondering how easily the virtue of patience quickly becomes the vice of procrastination:
It’s one of those irregular verbs: I patiently wait, you procrastinate, he impedes progress.
And so the earworm Gwen Stefani song “What you waiting for?” popped into my head which more or less is the same question: what is so much more optimal about doing it later—what conditions aren’t right? But I think I’ve had a very different realization to you. Because in my case the action in question involved money, money I don’t have, money I don’t expect to find any time soon.
This, of course, prompts a totally different question: “What must I do instead, and now?” which is annoying in that it’s no closer to, you know, taking action. But it’s also exciting in that I’ve discovered that I was using the totally wrong frame to approach the issue.
In my case I wasn’t procrastinating, procrastination is when you have the ability to do something and a sense that it is beneficial or obligatory but not the will to do it. In my case I had the will but not the means. Never the less, a valuable question to ask—if not now, when—because I didn’t realize that until I asked it.
Sometimes “Why not now?” is the wrong question, it should be “So, what else now?”—and sometimes, it is the right question and the answer is “Do it”.
In an example of synchronicity just today I was pondering how easily the virtue of patience quickly becomes the vice of procrastination:
And so the earworm Gwen Stefani song “What you waiting for?” popped into my head which more or less is the same question: what is so much more optimal about doing it later—what conditions aren’t right? But I think I’ve had a very different realization to you. Because in my case the action in question involved money, money I don’t have, money I don’t expect to find any time soon.
This, of course, prompts a totally different question: “What must I do instead, and now?” which is annoying in that it’s no closer to, you know, taking action. But it’s also exciting in that I’ve discovered that I was using the totally wrong frame to approach the issue.
In my case I wasn’t procrastinating, procrastination is when you have the ability to do something and a sense that it is beneficial or obligatory but not the will to do it. In my case I had the will but not the means. Never the less, a valuable question to ask—if not now, when—because I didn’t realize that until I asked it.
Sometimes “Why not now?” is the wrong question, it should be “So, what else now?”—and sometimes, it is the right question and the answer is “Do it”.