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.