Proactive Procrastination
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The other day, I was accused of procrastination. I considered this accusation
for a while, found it to be quite correct but then had a flash of inspiration
and I said, "Ah ... but I tend to procrastinate proactively ..."
This is quite funny, but it is also true. One of the reasons that I have such
a good collection of "works" to my name is exactly that - namely my ability to
procrastinate proactively. Here's how it works.
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Let's say you're supposed to do something and you don't do it.
The trick isn't to then go and lie on the sofa and stare into space instead,
or to roll a joint and make time just disappear, for time is very precious
indeed, and the one thing we can never regain, no matter how rich, beloved or
otherwise successful we will ever become.
The trick with proactive procrastination is to do something EXTREMELY USEFUL
instead of the thing you don't want to do, something that will move your
incarnation forward in the right direction, something healing, something
inspiring, something educational.
That's exactly what I've done, I realise with hindsight. When all my friends
were procrastinating with celebrity magazines and home shopping catalogues, I
would be procrastinating by reading personal development books instead.
Where my pals were watching soaps and daytime TV, I would be watching videos
of Bandler, Satir and Krishnamurti.
When they were getting stoned or drunk, I'd get out the meditation and
hypnosis CDs to make me feel better. And when they would do jig saw puzzles or
attempt to re-create the Titanic in matchsticks to take their minds off what
they weren't doing what they really should be, I'd have a go at art, sculpture,
composing songs and developing my public speaking abilities.
The result?
First few years, there wasn't much in it really. It took a while to
"manifest", as they say. For the longest time, there seemed to be no difference
- none of us had much money still, nor many trappings of comfort or a
"successful lifestyle".
But even back then, the momentum was building. I had had the experience of
writing a book or two by then, was teaching and learning more all the time, and
I was starting to make a name for myself based on my knowledge, experience and
good ideas. It started to gather speed, as such things do, and the difference
between me and the people who I was friends with back then is now REALLY
noticeable.
Alright, so I did a LOT of procrastinating. One time, I procrastinated for a
whole year and did nothing else but write a novel during that time. Another
time, I took 6 months and did nothing but landscape oil paintings during that
time. But I learned a lot of new things in doing that and all of that has come
in handy as time moves on, somewhere along the line, in a way that an in-depth
knowledge of daytime TV never could.
So here's the thought.
Don't beat yourself up for procrastinating. But DO be VERY CAREFUL how you
do that and make sure you don't just waste your time on useless TV
programmes and lost hours. If you fall into that, then procrastination can be a
really, really bad thing for a person's incarnation - even a path from which
after some 15 years or so, there seems to be no way how to return to something
else.
Spot your own procrastination patterns, and become AWARE of what you do with
your time to do whatever it is you're doing when you're not doing what you're
really supposed to be doing, if you know what I mean.
Ask yourself if that what you're doing there is USEFUL - in the context of
developing YOUR incarnation, of getting to a place where you die and you are
VERY SATISFIED because you had a good life, achieved personal triumphs, gained
freedom, had a lot of love and basically at least got close to fulfilling your
inherent potential.
Don't shy away from identifying even full time relationships and full time
jobs as nothing more than procrastination - I know lots of people who started
doing some dreadful job "just to kill the time and bring a few pennies in for
the bills" and then 20 years down the road found out they got stuck there and it
became their REALITY. I also know folk who got so stressed out about being alone
that they got involved with the first person who came along "to keep me company
until I meet my real love" - and find themselves 30 years down the road,
still pushing that same guy around in a wheelchair!
Oops ...
Procrastination, the act of avoiding something we find scary or or painful,
or possibly both, is in and of itself not such a bad thing.
It's natural to not want to do things we don't like. The key and power to
using things the way we are to our advantage is really to not worry so much
about the procrastination, but instead, to make good use of the time thus gained
to always keep moving forward towards one's true life goals.
And that's ...
... proactive procrastination!
SFX June 2007
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