New Month/New Resolve
Well, here it is June -- though you wouldn't know it from the weather -- and here I am, once again making resolutions to improve myself. I do this sort of thing all the time. Every new year, month, week -- heck, even every new hour -- is an opportunity to turn over a new leaf.
Primarily I'm focused on defeating my tendency to procrastinate. Considering all that I've had on my plate for the last two or so years, some people might not think I procrastinate at all. But I do -- a lot.
Some of it is good procrastination -- if there can be such a thing. In other words, while I'm playing computer games or surfing the Internet, I'm thinking about what I'm not writing, and that is a necessary process. Sometimes my mother will ask if I've written the next chapter of something and then is clearly (though quietly) critical of my lack of achievement when I confess that I have not. I explain that writing is different than cleaning the bathroom or washing the floor. Those are mindless jobs. They require no thought. You just do them. My mother doesn't understand that writing is different. You can't just sit down and begin to type. You have to have something to say, and you have to know how to say it. And that requires think time. So I might as well do those other mindless things while I'm thinking.
Unfortunately I can't put all my procrastinating down to that. Much of it is simply due to a reluctance to begin. Once I get started, I'm fine. So that's what I shall aim for in this new month. I'm going to stifle my procrastinating tendencies and get right to work.
Right now!