Time Snuck Up On Me... Again
It’s a dangerous thing. Lethal to dreams. Detrimental to happiness.
Last January, i wanted to get back to a course I once took, wanting to finish it once and for all. The moment I entered the Vice-Chair’s room, I knew I took too long a break. My last meeting with a school official was with a dignified retire-ready professor who short of begged me to finish the course before she retires. Now, i am facing a young, smart looking , young, professor (did I say young?) who was giving me a list of conditions for my re-entry. When I complained about the number of units she wanted me to take again, she said, “But it has been 17 years, Ma’am, so much has changed in the curriculum”. I gasped. Surprised to see my reaction, she asked, “Didn’t you notice?”
No I did not. “Life happened”, I said.
Another time, I bought a personal trainer package in a gym and (so me!) I found endless excuses to miss my classes for ... well, I did not know how long. Miracle of miracles (ok, honestly, more due to guilt) I returned resolute to be more consistent. When I asked my trainer how long it has been, he checked my record and it turned out that it has been a year since my last class. Time slipped just like that.
I have not been writing in this blog. Nuff about that. 🙄
Being consistent and living with awareness has always been a struggle for me. I want to be more purposeful and sometimes I win... but there’s a whole lot of times I don’t.
Why? I am writing the reasons here so I can... well, forgive myself.
1. Perfectionism. I missed a session. I missed a semester. I ate a lot over the weekend. Things did not go as well as I planned. I was grumpy at home. I was not loyal to a friend.
All of these things pull me down big time. I stop on my track and say, ok there goes my resolution, my plan, my goal, my self-image.
It’s like writing in a sheet of paper and crumpling it all up when I make a mistake. I want a restart. Most of the time life does not give us that.
Life goes on. Time goes on - with or without me. I need to invest time to be perfect and not to expect myself to do things perfectly to be worthy of the time I’d invest on myself. Besides, waiting till I’m perfect will just feed my procrastination even more!
2. Laziness. Yup. That one was difficult to type. Procrastination is a product of me being lazy. I will contemplate to death so I could stay still and do nothing. When I miss a class or miss writing a post or procrastinating on a project, i feel i am just taking the time to slow down, rest, pause. Furthermore, i fool myself to thinking I actually gained time. Obviously, i didn’t. I just replaced an otherwise worthwhile , goal oriented task with - “justified” activity - usually nothing, really. I just made myself think that I rewarded myself.
The real reward is not in the “spoiling” of the self but in the journeying with the self towards a destination, a target, a goal.
As Theodore Isaac Rubin said, “Happiness does not come from doing easy work, but from the after glow of satisfaction of the achivement of a difficult task that demanded our best”.
3. Overthinking. I recently came across this quote from Rory Vaden saying “ Channel your emotions into the excellence of doing something rather than in the mediocrity of deciding whether or not to do it”. OMG. It did hit a cord. Reminds me of myself - especially before a workout! Reflecting further though, I do it more often than I’d like to think (ok there I go again). There are just things I need to do and the momentum, the motion of doing it need not be justified at every opportunity.
More succinctly, a sign I saw in the toilet once says it all: “To flush or not to flush, that is NOT a question”.
Today I tell myself: Life is still ongoing. Get back in there!
Last January, i wanted to get back to a course I once took, wanting to finish it once and for all. The moment I entered the Vice-Chair’s room, I knew I took too long a break. My last meeting with a school official was with a dignified retire-ready professor who short of begged me to finish the course before she retires. Now, i am facing a young, smart looking , young, professor (did I say young?) who was giving me a list of conditions for my re-entry. When I complained about the number of units she wanted me to take again, she said, “But it has been 17 years, Ma’am, so much has changed in the curriculum”. I gasped. Surprised to see my reaction, she asked, “Didn’t you notice?”
No I did not. “Life happened”, I said.
Another time, I bought a personal trainer package in a gym and (so me!) I found endless excuses to miss my classes for ... well, I did not know how long. Miracle of miracles (ok, honestly, more due to guilt) I returned resolute to be more consistent. When I asked my trainer how long it has been, he checked my record and it turned out that it has been a year since my last class. Time slipped just like that.
I have not been writing in this blog. Nuff about that. 🙄
Being consistent and living with awareness has always been a struggle for me. I want to be more purposeful and sometimes I win... but there’s a whole lot of times I don’t.
Why? I am writing the reasons here so I can... well, forgive myself.
1. Perfectionism. I missed a session. I missed a semester. I ate a lot over the weekend. Things did not go as well as I planned. I was grumpy at home. I was not loyal to a friend.
All of these things pull me down big time. I stop on my track and say, ok there goes my resolution, my plan, my goal, my self-image.
It’s like writing in a sheet of paper and crumpling it all up when I make a mistake. I want a restart. Most of the time life does not give us that.
Life goes on. Time goes on - with or without me. I need to invest time to be perfect and not to expect myself to do things perfectly to be worthy of the time I’d invest on myself. Besides, waiting till I’m perfect will just feed my procrastination even more!
2. Laziness. Yup. That one was difficult to type. Procrastination is a product of me being lazy. I will contemplate to death so I could stay still and do nothing. When I miss a class or miss writing a post or procrastinating on a project, i feel i am just taking the time to slow down, rest, pause. Furthermore, i fool myself to thinking I actually gained time. Obviously, i didn’t. I just replaced an otherwise worthwhile , goal oriented task with - “justified” activity - usually nothing, really. I just made myself think that I rewarded myself.
The real reward is not in the “spoiling” of the self but in the journeying with the self towards a destination, a target, a goal.
As Theodore Isaac Rubin said, “Happiness does not come from doing easy work, but from the after glow of satisfaction of the achivement of a difficult task that demanded our best”.
3. Overthinking. I recently came across this quote from Rory Vaden saying “ Channel your emotions into the excellence of doing something rather than in the mediocrity of deciding whether or not to do it”. OMG. It did hit a cord. Reminds me of myself - especially before a workout! Reflecting further though, I do it more often than I’d like to think (ok there I go again). There are just things I need to do and the momentum, the motion of doing it need not be justified at every opportunity.
More succinctly, a sign I saw in the toilet once says it all: “To flush or not to flush, that is NOT a question”.
Today I tell myself: Life is still ongoing. Get back in there!
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