This weekend, I watched the Rankin/Bass Rudolph The Red-nosed Reindeer classic (yeah, for like the 38th consecutive year, or so). Don’t laugh, now; I can find a deep, intellectual moment in the dumbest TV, if necessary… One of the more useful spiritual observations I came away with this time concerns the song Rudolph’s doe-friend, Clarice, sings to comfort and encourage him:
“There’s always Tomorrow, for dreams to come true…”
Aha! I’ve identified yet another place in our collective childhood consciousness where we may have picked up damaging concepts about Hopes, Dreams, and that ageless enemy, Time.
There’s always Tomorrow…
True; the only problem is that Tomorrow is not Today, and Today is where everything happens. Your Future is a wonderful place — it’s where you keep all your Great Ideas and Big Dreams. Even though you ideas come to you in the Present, you immediately put them in the Future for safe keeping.
A great idea is exciting. Hopes and dreams are wonderful things to have around. The fantasy of realizing your Ideas — bringing them into existence, giving them form — is the Dream. The thought of actualizing dreams, considering all the work involved, can be daunting.
So you back up a step — back to the fantasy, the exciting part.
You already have the Big Idea, and you can see the Dream of your having reached the finish line, reaping the benefits of the follow-through… You can see the necessary Action Steps laid out before you — it’s a long hard road, but you can see where it leads.
So why do you stop, and not begin immediately taking the steps to get there? Why do you come back again and again to this beautiful view of your goal and yet decide, each and every time, to put off beginning the work?
It’s because you’re lazy, right? You don’t have it in you to do the work… Or maybe it’s not such a great idea, after all, and you’d rather not face the facts.
Maybe you’re preserving the dream. Maybe you’re protecting the beautiful view of your future. It’s so awesome, and so wonderful, it keeps your future bright. Your goal fills your horizon with hope and possibility. Your future looks wonderful as it is, and you love having a future where your dreams come true.
Yes, the fear of success comes into play — bringing your future into the present would change your life; your success has repercussions. Are you afraid of the changes that success would bring?
Admiring your pretty future is a promise. That promise doesn’t change the present, but it makes the difficulty of Now more bearable.
If you achieve your dream — if you arrive at your goal — if you successfully bring the future into the present — then to some degree, even if you make it happen, and you’re wildly successful, you have destroyed that vision of the future.
It’s not out there anymore, whispering to you of a better life, someday — it becomes real, it starts happening. The future is changed.
By keeping a dream alive in the future, you are protecting your hope. You love that potential, and you don’t want to see the end of that gorgeous Tomorrow — you need it. You love it.
So, I have a theory about the monster you’ve made out of procrastination:
Procrastination is not your enemy, after all. Procrastination is not your fear of doing the work, your fear of failing, your fear of not finding your way, or your fear of discovering that your big idea wasn’t as Big as you thought.
Procrastination is not an evil, self-defeating force that plans to undermine your goals and to make sure you never make it happen, fueled by his secret knowledge of how much you suck and don’t really have it in you.
Procrastination preserves your dream. Procrastination works for you — he’s entirely on your side — fiercely defending your bright future. Procrastination loyally guards the idea you hold most dear. Procrastination keeps it on that pedestal — pristine, full of hope and promise.
Procrastination is the guardian of your future — he transforms you into a happy ass chasing a carrot on a stick. And maybe he believes he’s doing exactly what you’ve asked him to do…
Seek Wisdom — Practice Love
Slade, I recently read the book by Paulo Coelho called The Alchemist. It is a wonderful book about following your dream wherever it takes you. What your article reminded me of was of the man who owned a shop where he sold glassware. He had a dream to travel to Mecca on a Spiritual Journey. He loved that dream but he never acted on it because he just knew that the reality would never be as good as the dream. I wonder what adventures in life did he miss out on by being afraid to allow his dream to come true. He had the finances to make the dream a reality and refused to follow through because he didn’t want to be disappointed with the reality of going to Mecca. He knew what he was doing and still held on to the dream but refused to fulfill it. How many of us are like this man? We forget the possibility that the reality could also be much better than we imagined.
Aw, Procrastination is such a sweetie, after all. I love this analysis, and I love what happens when we dig deeper to find the benefits in what we usually think of as negatives.
And damn, but you made me laugh with this: “This weekend, I watched the Rankin/Bass Rudolph The Red-nosed Reindeer classic (yeah, for like the 38th consecutive year, or so). Don’t laugh, now; I can find a deep, intellectual moment in the dumbest TV, if necessary…” considering that my own spiritual growth and teasing out of issues has lately been involving, of all the dumb TV out there, the Monkees. Ha!
And I love the picture of the Bumble. They bounce, you know!
Come to think of it, that’s probably a metaphor too.
Hmmmm … yummy article, Slade! Yes, procrastination is what we employ to keep hope alive – I love it! I think if only we didn’t attach our sense of self-worth to our goals and dreams, we wouldn’t need procrastination to work for us.
Instead of goals and dreams, why not just set intentions, without attachment as to how they “should” manifest themselves? That way, we walk into the future with joyful curiosity of what the Universe may send our way. We can act on our intention in the moment, the way we’re guided to in that present moment, without fear – because we’re not attached to the eventual outcome. We may have our ideas of what it could look like. But usually the Universe responds to our intentions in an even better way than we could have ever planned for ourselves …
So, let’s just do in the moment according to what we intend, and let go of the outcome.
Thanks for this great article!
Blessings,
Andrea
Slade,
No need to apologize or be embarrassed; I’m a Rankin/Bass groupie myself!
Yes, I own the boxed set of Rudolph & Frosty movies plus a half dozen or so of the oddball titles they produced. (Nester The Long-Eared Donkey was just plain weird. And yet I watch it with such fascination…!) Must be a Gen-X thing. That or I’m just a little cracked.
But I digress…
I hear you on this one. Not because I am a big procrastinator, myself. In fact, I’m not. I mean, I certainly have my moments — especially when it comes to my writing — but for the most part I am a take action kind of gal. I refuse to sabotage my future that way, and for some reason I recognized at an early age that procrastination was the fastest road to sabotage.
However, my dad & sister BOTH consistently sabotage their own successes. I’ve often had this conversation with my mom. It’s like the two of them are afraid of success, so they pull back at a crucial moment just before they realize a big goal or dream.
My sister played varsity basketball in high school. She was a second string forward, though, and only really got game-time if we were winning. I’m the younger sister by three years, but I could see what was going on. She was a good player. I can attest to this because I was the one helping her practice in our driveway. She just had zero self-confidence. Again, she was afraid of success. You could see it in her eyes on the court whenever the ball came to her. She wasn’t afraid of disappointing anyone with a failed shot. She was afraid to be the hero!
My dad does the same thing. Financially, he will always struggle because he sells an office just as it is becoming profitable. Why? He’s afraid of success! I’m the one in the family who has achieved many goals because I’m not afraid to do so!
I think it’s important to add here, though, that if you are to overcome a fear of success & the procrastination involved you should always keep an eye on your own motivations. I mean, if you have a Big Dream, you should take inventory & figure out why you want whatever it is that you want. Is it purely your ego wanting the status symbols?
Sometimes I think we fear success (and therefore procrastinate) because somewhere deep down we understand that the thing we think we want is not the thing that can best serve our life’s main project. In this respect, yes, procrastination can be our friend.
Okay, I’m off to watch Rudolph again while everyone else procrastinates making a comment here on this blog.
Love & Light,
Jewels
Your post makes me want to connect ideas on procrastination and time management with last things and the afterlife/afterworld in various religions and philosophies. I’ll do it someday.
Patricia, The Alchemist sounds like a great book. I’ll keep my eyes out for it.
Thalia, It’s the not the show, but the observer… All about the observer. One can ask the heavy questions of any source with the expectation of heavy wisdom. So, The Spiritual Teachings of the Monkees — I’d believe it — do share!
Andrea, Thanks for the affirmation and appreciation! Yummy is an original comment that I haven’t had in this context… Or maybe any other context, lately, come to think of it…
But, seriously now, Yes, it’s all about intentions and outcome — and in this case, one of those Mixed Messages to the Universe, perhaps? What do you really intend? Are you saying Yes, on one hand, but Not Yet on the other. Are your intentions being broadcast with a little shadow — a kind of “P.S.” clinging to them and basically negating or inverting them?
Jewels, Afraid to be the Hero — I like the way you put that. The Hero is difficult to be, isn’t it? Because we don’t identify with success so much, it presents an enormous unknown. Failure is an ugly, comfortable pair of pajamas, isn’t it? No mystery there. Mystery rarely corresponds with safety…
Bob, What do you mean by “last things” — come on, now, give us a teaser…
Quoting Slade: Thalia, It’s not the show, but the observer… All about the observer. One can ask the heavy questions of any source with the expectation of heavy wisdom. So, The Spiritual Teachings of the Monkees — I’d believe it — do share!
Well, a lot of it is pretty personal, and has to do with events happening when I was a kid and was watching The Monkees in reruns, and how watching the show and listening to their music now is helping me work out some serious issues (you can go look on my blog if you really want to know in detail, but be forewarned, I am crazy); more in the abstract I’d say it’s about taking silliness very seriously, both as an art and as a means to healing.
There’s also a strand running through the various ridiculous plots of artistic integrity and staying true to your dreams; countless times they turn down jobs-sometimes million dollar jobs-because it’s not quite what they want to do, or because they would be separated, or one of them would end up leaving the others in the cold, even though it means struggling to pay the rent. It’s a very optimistic show in some ways, as far as self-expression and art/music go. ‘Course it’s from 1966-67, when self-expression was all the rage. What makes me kind of sad is that I don’t think you’d ever see anything like it nowadays, not with that attitude.
heh – Abraham-Hicks Quote For The Day – 5 Dec 2007:
“What is the definition of procrastination? It means: I can feel within my Energy sensor that this action is not in perfect alignment at this time.”
Actually, I thought of a better, more relevant example of the Spiritual Teachings of the Monkees (you’re already sorry you asked, aren’t you?):
At the end of one of the shows, the four of them are being interviewed, and the interviewer asks them what kind of fun stuff are they going to buy, now that they’re rich and all. So he says to Mike Nesmith, “I understand you want to buy a house. Why do you want to buy a house?”
Now, I didn’t think it was that out-there a question, I mean apartments can be perfectly nice, right? But Mike just looks at the guy like he’s got three heads, and says, “Why do I want a house? To keep the wind off me. Because you get wet when it rains if you live in a parking lot!” like it was the stupidest question ever. And I thought, damn, that’s actually the right attitude. That’s knowing that you deserve the blessings of the universe. That’s clear intent, without any of that “yes, but not yet” or that “little shadow” attached as you said above.
Oh, right. A definition of last things. The end of the world and such. Which can also be the beginning of the *new* world too. Other people talk in much the same way about The Revolution or something akin to it. Your post just made me think that maybe these things are useful to people in some way for relating to time. So there’s my random association with your post! I’ll probably think some more about your theory since I’m kind of a recovering procrastinator.
Andrea, you have so perfectly articulated the Wicccan ideal for how to manifest!
I think it’s interesting to think of procrastination as a power for good but I’m not sure I agree that a guardian of our future should be working to keep us from reaching it. What Andrea is talking about – and that ideal I mention that we Wiccan’s strive for when we are working to manifest something in our lives – is not so much procrastination as it putting our intention out to the universe and then getting out of the way, without investing too much in the process.
Slade,
You got me thinking (again!) with this: “it’s all about intentions and outcome — and in this case, one of those Mixed Messages to the Universe, perhaps? What do you really intend? Are you saying Yes, on one hand, but Not Yet on the other. Are your intentions being broadcast with a little shadow — a kind of “P.S.” clinging to them and basically negating or inverting them?”
Hmmm — could this be my blockage when getting my clairaudience back?
To that end, I don’t think I’m afraid of success with the clairaudience. I think it’s more a “fear of power” thing. I know how powerful the ability was — so much so that it freaked me out because I didn’t fully understand it at the time. Now that I understand it, I really didn’t think I was afraid of it. But perhaps I’m saying yes on the one hand, but I’m still subconsciously attaching a P.S. to The Universe?
…So where does this new visual ability that I e-mailed you about fit in to all this? Any thoughts?
…My brain hurts thinking about this!
Love & Light,
Jewels
Hi Angela-Eloise … thank you for that comment – I had no idea this was a Wiccan way of thinking, also. I love it when the same philosophies and attitudes pop up in different spiritual traditions, thanks for pointing this out.
Lola – awesome quote!
Blessings,
Andrea
Interesting perspective on procrastination Slade…I have always disliked procrastination…my ex is an expert – procrastination is his best freind, my enemy. Well…it was…I will try to see procrastination in a new light:) This one has me thinking!
Slade, thanks for sending me here. Indeed this definition of procrastination could very well be what keeps folks from acting on their dreams. I love what you said about procrastination preserving the dream. That’s obviously the value that some folks get by not acting. They figure that at least they have a dream so they delude themselves into thinking that they are better off than those without one. Perhaps in some ways they are.
Thanks, Tom!
Your article put me in mind of the questions: “How’s that working for you? How are you benefiting from it?”
Even when you behave in a way that would seem counter-intuitive or counter-productive to your dreams and goals, on some level you have to be choosing the action (or lack of action) for some reason. You are always motivated, no matter how complicated or multi-layered, toward benefit.
So, logically, your actions are protecting or enabling something… Hopefully it’s a more constructive and potentially optimistic way to re-examine “bad” habits…
So … now that I’ve seen all this on procrastinating, how do I get from that to NOT procrastinating?
Kate,
My advice, honestly, not intended to be as smart-assed as it’s going to sound…
Show up and do it!
Do the next obvious thing now, immediately, relentlessly…