Procrastination

God has promised forgiveness to your repentence; but He has not promised tomorrow to your procrastination. - St. Augustine

I’m having surgery in 9 days. The likelihood that I will die during this surgery (my second in the past few months) is very low. But it is not non existent.

Your likelihood of dying within the next 9 days is also not non existent, whether you’re having surgery or not.

Very few people know when they will die. Not many people get a timeline, a “head’s up” with regards to their own death. But most of us act like we do. Most of us act as if we have all the time in the world since we don’t know the definite day, since no one’s given us a “deadline” yet.

But we don’t. We don’t have all the time in the world. We don’t have an infinite number of tomorrows. We have, most of us, many years ahead of us, but does that give us the right to waste them? Is it any less criminal to frivolously waste today or tomorrow just because we have a few thousand more, than it would be for someone who has less than a hundred left?

I’m not saying don’t relax. I’m all for relaxing. I believe that some people are delaying their relaxation for a tomorrow that may never come. I also believe in work, in striving for your goals, in birthing the Future that you want, as opposed to the future you’ll end up with.

You’ll have a future (hopefully), but will it be the one you want? Will it be the one that you dream of? Or do you plan to dream of your Future for many years before you begin creating it? Have you put off working on it for “tomorrow”, and that was two months ago, or longer?

If your dreams, your goals, your life is being put off, make certain it’s because you want to and not because you’re letting it. If now is not the right time for you to have that child you’ve always wanted, then make certain that you’re choosing not to have the child now. Make certain it’s not a “I’ll think about it later” type of thing. Make your choice. Make now about your choices rather than your procrastination. Make your tomorrow, your next birthday, your Future, about your choices and not about your procrastinations. Perhaps you don’t have the money to go to college right now, but are you working on fixing that problem? Perhaps you would rather concentrate on work right now rather than find a new dating partner, but how will you recognize when it’s laziness on your part rather than a conscious decision? Decide. Birth your Future, even if that Future has “laters” and “tomorrows” in it. But have them be there because you placed them there, not because that’s where your forgotten and ignored dreams have ended up, discarded and forlorn.

Choose. It’s not procrastination if you choose. It’s procrastination if you don’t choose. So, choose, and birth the Future you want.

Frustration

a feeling of dissatisfaction, often accompanied by anxiety or depression, resulting from unfulfilled needs or unresolved problems

That’s from dictionary.com, and is the only definition listed that doesn’t refer back to “frustrate”. It’s a great word, and very appropriate definition. It hits the nail on the head. And as you create the Future, a lot of things will frustrate you. Frustration will become part of your life. What do you do about it? What do you do about the dissatisfaction, the unfulfilled needs, and the unresolved problems? The easy answer is to resolve the problems and fill the needs. Thus, frustration resolved. But that’s not always easy. It’s frequently simple, but not always easy.

You have a friend who’s making a mess of his life, and you want to help him, you want his life to be better, but he refuses to take your advice or to do anything to help him. That’s frustrating. The simple thing is to accept your friend and how he is and accept that he’s not going to change until he’s good and ready. Simple, but not easy. It could be that save your sanity, if you truly can’t let go of your desire to help him and your frustration over him, that you’ll have to let go of the friendship entirely. I’m not talking about giving up on him. When he decides to improve his life, be there for him. But first, be there for yourself. You deserve better than to be frustrated over a person every time you see them. If you can’t let go of the frustration, then let go of the source – seeing your friend in such a lousy situation. Giving up on him would mean never being there for him again. But if he’s sincere about his desire for change and his desire for your help, then go back to him. But take care of yourself first.

You hate your job and you need to find a new one. Find a new one. There are hundreds of jobs out there. Check the paper. Check on-line. Simple, and possibly easy. The complications come in with what else your job gives you besides frustration. Money. Those hundreds of jobs out there most likely pay you less than what you’re making now. Plus all the seniority that you’ve built up in your current company would go to waste. Number one thing that seniority gives you? Money. It also gives you security from getting fired when lay offs come around, and perhaps you get a better choice of projects, but since you hate your job, why worry about getting fired? And if the projects are so great, why do you want a new job? It’s a gilded cage – but it’s still a cage. So, what do you do when you don’t have enough money? What do you do when a new job wouldn’t pay you enough to keep up your current lifestyle? You change your lifestyle – simple, but not easy. Do you have credit card debt that you need to make payments on? Pay off the credit cards – stop using them, and pay more than the minimum balance each month. Figure out what you’re getting out of making all those purchases, and get it someway that doesn’t cost you a ton of money. Do you feel the need to go out because you hate your house? Find cheap or free things to do outside the house or improve your house – simple, but not easy. Do you eat out all the time because there’s nothing to cook in the house or there are no clean dishes to cook with? Go grocery shopping and wash the dishes. If you don’t know how to cook decent foods or how to go shopping without having things spoil in your refrigerator before you get around to using them, take a home ec class at your nearest college. It’s simple, but not easy. Change jobs if you hate your job. If you can’t take a pay cut, make being able to take a pay cut your number one priority. Stop worrying about getting a new job or more money and start improving the quality of your life and your checkbook. Put your focus somewhere else for a while. It’s amazing what can happen when you do.

What else is frustrating you? What else is causing frustration in your life? Can you see the simple but not easy solution? Is it easier to live with the frustration than to actually do the work necessary to remove it from your life? Is that what you want your Future to be like – frustrating? You deserve a great Future, but the birth of the Future begins now, in the present. You deserve a great present, but it’s going to take some work on your part to get it. Figure out what is causing your dissatisfaction and fill the need and solve the problem. You are powerful enough to do this. It may be that things will get worse before they get better. Keep your eyes on the Future and what you are birthing. There may be birthing pains, but know that in the end, you will have the Future you deserve.

Inner Longings

Did you ever consider that God puts longings in our hearts in order that we execute them?- Anonymous

There are many longings in our heart. Some noble, some moral, some immoral, some down right weird. Not all of our longings should be followed. Having unprotected sex with strangers - dangerous. Eating an entire box of ice cream - less dangerous, but still has consequences. However, have you ever had a dream that you were too afraid to follow? Did you want to be a writer, a poet, a painter, a great politician, a missionary, but you never really followed through? Or perhaps you tried and were scorned or ridiculed by your friends and family. Or perhaps you weren't - perhaps you were just ignored. Don't let them stop you. You are an amazing person, and you deserve to achieve your dreams, provided they don't hurt yourself or others. If you want to be a writer, then write. You don't have to be published to be a writer. You don't even have to be good to be a writer. A writer writes, and that's that. If you want to be a poet, then write poetry. If you're afraid that someone will find it, write it in the sand as the tide's coming in. Write it down and then burn the paper. Write it down and mail it anonymously to your favorite magazine or celebrity. Painters paint. It's a little harder to hide your painting if you're afraid of ridicule. But you can take a class. Or brazen it out and let people find your paintings. Or keep just one canvas that you use over and over again, repeatedly covering your paintings so that the dream-stealers would only be able to find one at any time. If it hurts no one, then do it. Figure out a way. You can achieve great things, if you are willing to try. Be willing. Give birth to the Future of your dreams. Make the world a better place by making you a happier person. The world could use some more happiness. And the dream-stealers? The nay-sayers? The ones who ridicule you? You don't need them. You deserve better than them, and perhaps this longing in your heart is there to remind you of that, to give you a little push to separate yourself from those who seek to do you harm, who seek to keep you back, who build themselves up in their own eyes by trying to look like they're better than you, above you. They aren't better than you. They aren't above you. They are dream-stealers, but you can take your dreams back. You can keep your dreams. Protect your dreams and yourself from those that seek to do you harm. Envision and build a Future where there are no dream-stealers in your life, no abusers, no ridicule. Make that Future come true, a safe place for you and your dreams.