The last couple of days have been very busy for me. A relentless push at work towards not so far away deadlines, unending chores at home, general busyness and mental exhaustion – so much that I did not sit down to write. I did read, but not write.
Just two days of this and I am shaking my head at myself. I know life gets in the way. But writing is very important to me. However busy I am, I should definitely be able to dedicate at least 30 min in a day. In small chunks of 10 min – if that is all is really available. After all, I say that this is extremely important to me right? This act of writing?
I know that however busy I am, I do have 30 min a day to write. What has happened in the last two days is the classic excuse – ‘Oh! But I am so tired! I’ll do it tomorrow when I’ll feel better’. A slave to my ‘feelings’.
But this attitude is very unfair – unfair to my tomorrow-self. Why should my tomorrow-self have to deal with drudgery just because my today-self wants to relax and ‘feels’ tired and uses self-pity as an excuse?
If saying to my friend ‘Hey, I’m too tired to do any work today. I just need to relax. Why don’t you do the work and I’ll use the money you earn?’. Is this ok when I am capable of working but just ‘feeling’ like taking it easy? If this is not ok between friends, then why is pushing everything on my tomorrow-self ok?
The problem here lies in my perception. I perceive my friend and me as two separate entities. However my tomorrow-self is an extension of my today-self. I view my tomorrow-self as having no other identity than my today-self and thus no voice.
And I have realized that this perception is not fully right.
Tomorrow, or next year, I will not be the same person I am today. The essence might be similar – might be – because life-changing, personality altering, mind-bending events happen and we change drastically. My tomorrow-self is indeed an extension of me, but it is not my today-self – it has its own unique identity in its time.
So, what good is it holding our tomorrow-self hostage to our today-self’s whims?
October 22, 2014