Do it now
Thoughts about time, impermanence, dreams, love, and self-acceptance.
Do it now? A bit rich, coming from me. But it’s one of the hardest lessons and I need to learn it.
Time is short. If there is any certainty in life, it’s that the sun will set on another day and you can never get it back again.
Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?
Mary Oliver
Well, Mary O, I didn’t plan to spend all of Tuesday trying to recover my website. That’s a day I won’t get back again. Website, yes. Time? No, but I learned some stuff, and did some doodling while waiting for helpdesk.
And what if you have a problem with procrastination, like me?
For sure, I’m not going to rush to clean the shower drain or clear off any of my heaps of paper from the table, I’m not weird. In fact, if you find me doing any of that, it’s because there’s a bit of a Situation, a looming deadline, or visitors. More likely, I’m procrastinating on something else…
Thing is, I procrastinate on the good stuff too, the stuff that lights me up, the stuff I enjoy. Why?
The usual reasons*, plus
fear of failure
fear of being judged
Just to be clear, fear of failure isn’t the same as perfectionism: that’s having impossibly high standards that you can never meet, which in turn provide a wonderful stick to beat yourself with if - or rather, when - you fail.
It’s the possibility of failure that’s the problem, not the desire for a ‘perfect’ outcome. Nothing wrong with having high standards. But what happens when you fail? You get judged. So you learn to worry what other people think. And at the core of that, is a struggle with self-acceptance and worth.
*I wrote previously about ADHD and procrastination here. In order to get moving on anything, there’s a strict hierarchy: urgency, novelty, interest. Bonus points for having a condition that increases the possibility of ‘failure’ and being judged…
Were you ever laughed at, as a child? Me too
There’s oceans of difference between being laughed at, laughing with, gently teased, and ridiculed. My daughter and I tease each other all the time, but we always know when to stop - and we also know that behind the teasing is total, unconditional love and acceptance.
She teases me about the middle-class things I say *Do you want feta or goats cheese with the broad beans and farro salad*
I tease her about her ridiculous questions *Can swans go up stairs*, absolute classic.
We both keep lists, regularly updated with further evidence to be deployed at a later date.
If we didn’t feel unconditional love as children - if love and acceptance had conditions attached, even if unspoken - or if there was uncertainty, in case that love and acceptance was taken away - or maybe WAS taken away, through bereavement or family break up - then we can have a very hard time believing in our worth, even when we’re all grown up.
Ever feel like you can never get it right? Me too
At school, at home, with family and friends, I knew when I stuffed up, because people told me. And now I’m a grown up, sometimes they still do. Even if they haven’t told me, I can always sense when I’ve stuffed up. Most of the time, I just assume I have. Even if I’m not sure where or how, it’s a safe bet to assume I’ve done something wrong.
Apparently, a child with ADHD receives 20,000 more negative messages by the age of 10 than the average. If that didn’t mess you up then, learning about it now can seriously mess up your equilibrium!
Result? After the complete loss of trust in yourself and your ability to navigate life, it becomes very hard to make decisions about what to do. Chances are, we’ll stuff it up. Again.
And let’s not forget, bundled up with ADHD can be a hefty helping of impulsivity - increasing the probability that decisions are a little ‘iffy’. This feels like agonising over what to do, then out of nowhere a compelling need to do something completely new and different pops up. Because this new thing feels so urgent, it’s impossible to discern if it’s sensible.
Were you told you couldn’t - or shouldn’t - do something? Me too
And it doesn’t have to be something said out loud. Unspoken messages can be just as powerful. Or little comments that we overhear when we’re children, which lodge in our minds as ‘things to remember when I’m a grown-up’: do something useful with your life, don’t be arty farty or waste time daydreaming…
But the thing is…we’re judging all the time, too. We judge other people, we judge ourselves, we’re always noticing and forming opinions. We are all biased, we’re all a product of our lifetime’s experience.
What about now?
We’ll never stop judging ourselves, and other people will always have their opinions about us. It’s a human instinct, to keep us safe. And if we want to explore new things and learn and grow, it won’t always be pretty and we’ll probably stuff it up. I started to write: we’ll make a mess, we’ll make mistakes - but who says it’s a mess, a mistake? More judgements! See, this stuff is hard!
In fact, I think that when there’s something our heart is telling us to do, there’s a direct correlation between its importance to us, and the number of reasons our head finds for why it’s too risky, or complicated, or whatever…
Our choices are:
Do the thing and be judged
Don’t do it and be judged anyway
Whether it’s art, our creativity, or just the business of being ourselves and doing what we want to do, we get to choose what’s a fail and what’s a win. And does-it-matter-what-we-call-it-anyway as long as we learned something along the way, and didn’t hurt anyone?
Do it now
However bad it feels, it’s as nothing to the realisation that the time has gone, and it’s too late. Life is short.
Words and opinions and memories that do not serve you are just that. They’re as nothing compared to who you are right now, and what you can do with the time you still have.
You and everything you are today, everything you can give and say and do and think, are worth so much more.
Just as surely as the sun will set on today, it will rise again tomorrow and we (hopefully) get another chance at this thing called living.
So…
With all that off my chest, what do you want to do?
I was told this, once👇 but it’s what I want to do, so I will:
PS I had no idea when I sat down to write this, that these words would appear. Sure, a few lingering thoughts about things brought up by the retreat, but mostly it’s because I’m about to honour an absent person’s birthday this weekend, with a walk for family and friends. Regardless of my personal reasons, the message is something I stand by - yet find challenging to live by. I don’t think I’m alone, am I? Battling the opposing desires to live my dreams while avoiding the crippling fear associated with trying?
You are not alone in your thoughts. I appreciate you sharing. Thank you and please keep writing. And love your art, gorgeous.
Thank you for sharing, your words certainly chime with my experience.