Wise Words
Does It Happen To You Too?
Chongeswar
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Does it happen to you too? A simple task has been pending for a long time ,pushed to eternal tomorrows. Today is the fateful day. It cannot be postponed any further. So, you ask for a cup of tea. The tea is delayed, and you doze off for a while. Then you have your tea. You scroll through your phone a little. The thought of a pending task makes you toss and turn in bed. Suddenly, you feel it would be prudent to visit the washroom or take a bath first. All this while, you know very well that the task cannot be pushed any further. Yet somehow, there is always one more thing to do before doing it. As fate would have it, you get a call from work or there is some family emergency, and the task gets pushed further. The task itself may be quite simple: filling in a questionnaire for a meditation retreat you always wanted to attend, calling your father, speaking to your mother-in-law, informing your boss that you need a leave of absence, starting the report, or completing the last twenty percent of a home assignment. Nothing particularly difficult, yet something keeps standing between intention and action. They say it is a sign of Procrastination. (You do not say it.) The word procrastination comes from the Latin word procrastinatio. Pro means "in favor of," and crastinus means "tomorrow"to put something off until tomorrow or to defer until tomorrow.There is a much better word in Sanskrit that captures the essence perfectlyDeerghasutrata (दीर्घसूत्रता), "the quality of a long thread"someone who stretches out a simple task endlessly.The seasoned procrastinator is smiling inwardly and nodding his head in complete agreement. For him, even daily routines such as brushing his teeth take unusually long. Here, acknowledgment of the work is present. Mental engagement is also present, but without any action. You keep thinking about how to do it, improving it in imagination, rearranging it mentally, perfecting it, sometimes going around the same loop again and again. But the actual work gets deferred and deferred. Then comes the last-hour rush. Action happens in a haphazard manner under pressure. Obviously, you are not satisfied with the outcome. It is not even close to what you had imagined. You promise yourself that you will not repeat this again. But the pattern repeats. And the story continues. It is not merely a habit. It is a psychological and existential pattern.These delays keep the potential intact and untested. As long as the work is not done, the mind can continue creating beautiful possibilities a grand outcome, perfection. "Wow, so beautiful." This mental exercise gives you pleasure, satisfaction, and above all, the assurance that it will be done and that too in less time. "I will be more productive and efficient because of this planning and plotting." Meanwhile, you can do something else. And what do you do? You start watching videos, talking to friends, playing some games, having a Coke or tea/coffee, eating food, or doing anything else that gives immediate comfort. With this postponement, the burden seems to disappear. The responsibility appears to have shifted. You feel safe and comfortable. But you never ask: "Responsibility has been shifted to whom?" Even if you ask, the mind will probably create an imaginary helper someone who will somehow complete your work or rescue you, even though that person has never helped you before. But sooner or later, reality catches you off guard.Half-heartedly, You rush to complete the job haphazardly. When you work in a hurry, many ideas remain unexplored, insights are lost, and you are left with the thought: "I could have done it better." Yet you comfort yourself: "At least I completed the task against all odds." The odds that you yourself has created and paved. By you alone. Soon, you become aware of this habit or loop either through the tricky and sticky situations you repeatedly find yourself in, or through observations from people around you: family, friends, or well-wishers. Then one of two things happens. You make resolutions. You adopt a few tricks and methods to conquer this habit. Yet you still fall into the same pattern.You regret it, curse yourself or others, become frustrated, and start searching for the next clue, the next technique, the next solution. Or You recognize your own pattern but continue postponing even simple tasks, waiting for pressure, urgency, or an external trigger to push you into action. The last-minute rush and its associated thrill, attention, or adventure become strangely exciting and addictive. At the same time, escaping responsibility brings its own deceptive sense of freedom. Slowly, you master the art of procrastination. You become a master Procrastinator.* Thinking preserves and protects all possibilities.Thinking allows you to revise, improve, rearrange, and perfect the imagined process and the imagined outcome. Hence, it gives you an illusion of control and progress. Thinking protects your identity and makes you feel safe and secure because it seeks certainty before moving. Whereas action takes you into the territory of uncertainty. It requires courage, acceptance, and the willingness to do course correction.Action is limited by time, effort, skill, resources, and circumstances. Action demands energy and attention. Most importantly, action reveals your actual capabilities. Let us take the example of a student who has moved on to become a worker from being a very good student to becoming an average or below-average worker. Most probably, he assumed that the same mental engagement that helped him solve numerical problems could also be applied to physical work. But solving a problem on paper and executing something in the real world are two different experiences. Another possibility is that he never liked doing physical work, or maybe he did not appreciate what he is getting in return. Maybe the reward, recognition, or purpose attached to the work did not feel meaningful enough to generate the required energy. Maybe the work demanded qualities that were not developed during your academic years communication, persistence, teamwork, emotional regulation, or the ability to continue despite discomfort. Similarly, you may be a very efficient person at work but not a good husband because you keep postponing a few household chores.Likewise, you may be a very efficient homemaker but not an efficient worker because you have taken up the job out of compulsion or circumstances. So, it is not the person. It is the task. Or perhaps, more accurately: It is your relationship with that task or act. Reasons and Possible Solutions Once you understand this, the next question naturally arises: Why does this happen? Before you move further, ask yourself: "Have you donned too many hats?" Or: "Have you taken on too many responsibilities?" If so, your energy and attention are being pulled in too many directions. Most of the time, you feel overwhelmed by the thought that you have too many jobs or tasks to complete. The problem is not always the number of tasks. The problem is that you have not clearly defined the work. You have not prepared a list of pending tasks. One role keeps interfering with another. Even with a bare minimum of roles, you have different types of responsibilitiesoffice work, household chores, personal work, social engagements, spiritual practices, and so on. Hence, the fear that you may forget some of these unfinished tasks constantly occupies your mind. As you yourself say: "It is in my mind." You have made a mental note of these tasks with the commitment to complete them in the future. But these unfinished tasks keep churning in the background. This is an invisible micro-stresseating you from within like a termite and quietly weighing you down in the present task. The strange thing is that you may not even notice this micro-stress until you remove it. Why? Because you have been told that this is simply part and parcel of life. And without critically examining it, you have accepted it. Here, time management, setting boundaries, dropping unnecessary tasks, and assigning a few tasks to someone else can help. Divide and rule. But, as you might have realized, time is not the only criterion. Otherwise, why would a two-minute phone call or communication require two hours of planning? Sometimes two days or more. There is something deeper. What is stalling you? Now you need to find out what is preventing your intention from turning into action. There is something you do not want to facesituations that trigger certain feelings or emotions, most probably something deep-seated. What are you trying to avoid? --- Thinking deeper will help in acknowledgment and later acceptance. It will slowly loosen its iron grip over you. You will be able to see the separationthe gap. "I am anxious" will slowly turn into: "There is anxiety." "I am fearful" will turn into: "There is fear." The moment you see the emotion as something appearing within you, rather than something that defines you, its intensity begins to reduce. Still,How long are you going to plan and avoid? And how often? Thinking too much about the work in expectation of a better result is equivalent to turning the rudder before the propeller moves. Know what you are trying to avoid. Which feelings or emotions are involved? Understand what your resistance is and where it comes fromchildhood experiences, setbacks, disappointments, unresolved emotions, perfectionism, fear of failure, fear of judgment, fear of success, the need for certainty, attachment to comfort, or simply a habit that has become part of your identity. Understanding your strengths and weaknesses will help. Do your own SWOT analysis: Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities you avoid or let go of Threatswhat threatens you Let your strengths seep into your weaknesses like reverse osmosis. How? Think of a task you are avoiding that is closer to your strengths. Let your strengths slowly enter the areas where you feel weak. Bit by bit. Piece by piece. Never take a drastic step. You have piled up multiple tasks. Write down all the pending tasks that are due. Bring them down to the few most important ones. Bring them down to the bare minimum. It could be just one: Filling in the questionnaire for the meditation retreat. Just one. Now how to take that action ? In the spirit of Sage Dattatreyathe ability to remain open to learning from anythinglet me share a method from an industry known for entering tasks while fully aware of physical risks involved every day. Here, you are also entering a risky territory.Not physical risk but Emotional and psychological risk. The difference is that now you enter knowingly and with acceptance. The method is: SWICS S Stop W Walk through the task ( here mentally and emotionally ) I Identify the hazards or risks C Control the hazards or risks (eliminate or substitute) S Safely complete the task Now observe: How and for how long do you try to avoid the task? How often do you repeat this pattern? How many conditions do you create before completing the task? It may seem extreme, but you have been living on the edge for a long time. The mind will suggest: "Think one more time." Not because it wants more clarity. But because it does not want to lose its grip on you. You may feel that more thinking will bring more clarity. But action brings more clarity. Action reveals where you get stuck. Action teaches you how to navigate. Too much thinking is like putting the cart before the horse. Steering comes after movement. You need to move. So move. Take action. How long do you want to keep thinking? Take the first small, honest step. Sometimes, one honest action is more powerful than a hundred plans. Then take the next one. Because No matter how much you plan and plot, in the end, you have to take action. "Everyone has a plan until they get hit in the face." MikeTyson If you do not like the philosopher Mike Tyson, then contemplate this: "Do not go around difficulty. Go through it." Zen insight There is a limit to everything. Everything has its own place and its own pace. So the prudent question is: What should you do when you get hit? "Fall seven times, stand up eight." Japanese Proverb "Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall." Confucius Yes. Get up and face it again. Learn to navigate. Adjust. Recalibrate. You belong to the tribe which has survived on the virtue of - adaptability. "Nothing in the world is as soft and yielding as water. Yet nothing can better overcome the hard and the strong."-Lao Tzu There is something adventurous and thrilling about facing what you have been avoiding for so long. Because when you finally face it, you realize: It was not as scary as your mind had imagined. .................................................................................................................... * confession. For any errors, feedback and suggestions on this article or past articles and for suggestions of topics for the next articles Please mail chaitanya.seeker@gmail.com ...........................................................