I keep returning to some themes. While browsing my old stuff the other night, I found this from Aug. 13, 2013 …
If not now, when?
What is it you’ve been meaning to do?
The time to do it is now.
“It can wait; I have time to get it done.” Perhaps. But time runs out.
The time you have left is already under way.
A couple weeks earlier on July 29, I posted:
While you can
So much to say, so much to do …
We all have the same number of minutes per day, but we don’t have the same number of days. We know how many minutes per day we have; we don’t know how many days.
Fret not over the reality that your days are finite; what can you say or do that is infinite, that lasts, that will still be making its impact when you are gone?
Say it. Do it.
Say what you can, do what you can, while you can.
And fret not that you could have done more: You did this.
– – –
Then, as now, I was preoccupied with getting things done. Around the same time I wrote a post about a couple dozen projects I had started but not finished. Procrastination was, then as now, one of my worst habits. The fact that my time on this planet is finite, then as now, weighed on my conscience.
Reading those old posts, I almost threw up my hands and thought that nothing has changed — I’m still the guy with big ideas he never gets around to finishing.
Almost.
Then I remembered that when I wrote these posts nine years ago, I had published seven books — four with my name on it and three editions of works in the public domain. I now have 21 books out there — the 12th with my name on it comes out Oct. 18, and I’ve released nine public domain books. One of the original seven — The Adventures of Mike Phoenix — was a collection of four novelettes and a short story. It’s been replaced by Mike Phoenix: The Complete Novelettes, which is 16 novelettes and two short stories.
We can fuss and fret about the pace of progress, because we do have a limited time on this earth. Or we can open our eyes a little, celebrate the evidence of real progress, and get on with it. That was my advice to you and to myself in those two blog posts above, and it’s still valid.
Getting upset about our procrastination is just another way of procrastinating.