Tony Dewan

I am easily seduced by tomorrow. This actually stems from an overall struggle with self control that, in this situation, manifests as procrastination. I have this big, amorphous cloud of projects, goals, and tasks that is constantly floating around in my mind. When my mind starts to wander, the cloud descends, and several of the overdue and hyper-necessary tasks seek attention. The interaction usually goes something like this:

Task:

“Hey! I'm important! Remember me? You gotta get me done, or really bad things will happen.”

Me:

“Shit, I know. I really need to get on that. What am I gonna do? When can I get that done? I have all of that other stuff to do too! Now I'm all nervous and worried! I need to distract myself, so I can avoid thinking about how bad this is, and wait to do it tommorrow!”

I then, depending upon my circumstances, turn up NPR, make a phone call, or open up my feed reader, and get lost in the immediateness of sensory and mental input.

There are three reasons that my world does not end as these tasks build:

1. À la structured procrastination several of them are not as important as my immediate reaction suggests. This analysis usually stems from the fact that I am incredibly and inherently ambitious, and this ambition often creates some of these projects, goals and tasks for the sake of said ambition. This also connects directly with my constant self-analysis.
2. Every once in awhile I get a burst of cutting-through-the-queue motivation and get some shit done.
3. Many of these goals are personal or not-connected-to-my-job professional goals, meaning the importance is relative to my own expectations, not others.

But, that is exactly the key. My expectations are the ones that matter, and they are what inform my perspective on my skill at life. Therefore, I think I'm bad at life.

The point?

One of the central struggles of my personal development path is the tug of war between my personal expectations and my ability to meet those expectations.

Realising you have a problem is the first step to recovery...