Character flaws on parade

I can't be the only one who, in order to get anything done, has to have one or more things he's very much supposed to be doing for excellent and theoretically compelling reasons just so he can ignore them and do something else. Can I?

I know more than a few very practical, goal-oriented people who set their minds to tasks and find themselves accomplishing things - sometimes almost completely overhauling their lives over the course of weeks and months. They should be shining beacons of example for me. Still, most days it simply fails to prompt me to any action. No matter how clearly I can illustrate to myself that my circumstance would improve and my future brighten if I simply hunkered down and got X done, almost without fail I'll fail to do it until either a conceptual gun's to my head or, more often, it's too late to act.

If it's a task I, for some reason, don't want to do I will find almost any other trivial enterprise suddenly fascinating... until someone says "That's good! You should do more of that!" at which point it takes on the aspect of something else I'm supposed to do, and my interest evaporates. It goes on another of the back burners on the endless, greasy range of life.

All these years and I still can't figure myself out.

Why? Well, probably because it's something I really should do...

Comments

Anonymous said…
Well, it's long covered ground between us that you and I share this pernicious vice, and the only way I've managed to get as much writing done as I have over the past five years or so was to be forced to sit at a desk and do nothing but type for two years straight. Unable to read, listen to music, watch TV, or waste time on the Internet, expected to do nothing all day long every day but transcribe mind numbing government meetings from tape, I wound up producing half a dozen novels and god knows how many blog entries, Martian Vision articles, and short stories.

I suspect I haven't changed much in this regard, although it's hard to tell, since my life has changed in such a way as to leave me little time for fannish things because when I'm not at work, I'm generally too busy with real life stuff involving SuperGirlfriend and the SuperKids.

Still, I'd like to think I have enough self discipline that, if someone actually paid me to write something, I could sit down and do it. And I'd certainly like to find out...
Anonymous said…
Discipline. And Planning.

It's as simple as that.

At least, that's what I'm fining out with my own self-employment.

I wish I could just wake up everyday, improvise, and remember everything that needs to be done that day, but I can't, and you know what a mess I can be sometimes.

I can't see people who are "normal" can do it either.

Along with the two things above, I would have to say "One day at a time" in terms of perceiving projects and such. I'm such a nudge when it comes to slowing down and taking proper time to get things done.

Mike

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