Sid, like many people, will never stop procrastinating because he lives an insincere life.
As soon as he entered the world, society began telling Sid all of the things he “should
do”.
They told him how he should dress, how he should act, how he should think, how he should
speak, how he should work, what he should study, what jobs he should take, and so on.
As a child, he began worshipping these “shoulds”, and he began living according to what he “should
do” rather than what he genuinely wanted to do.
Living according to what one “should do” leads to insincerity, and insincerity leads
to a life of endless procrastination.
Sid procrastinates on his homework for medical school because he never wanted to be a doctor.
He wanted to be a mathematician, and he only took this career path because his parents
told him he should.
And they told him he should because society told them they should tell him that.
Sid has never experienced what it’s like to be a doctor, never shadowed one, and never
studied the career path.
He’s never experienced or seen the life of a doctor, so he doesn’t have a sincere
desire to be one.
And if he doesn’t have a sincere desire to be a doctor, how can he have a sincere
desire to do his homework?
And without a sincere desire to do his homework, he will procrastinate until the pain of not
doing his homework reaches its limit.
When talking about his procrastination, Sid says, “I know what I should do, but I never
do it.”
This is a lie.
Sid doesn’t know what he should do.
No one knows what anyone else should do.
If Sid asks how to get to a castle in the centre of a country, the man to the right
of the castle will say go left, but the man to the left of it will say go right.
What one should do depends on where one is and where one wants to go.
And everyone’s life is so unique that no two people are ever in the same place, so
all directions are misleading.
But this doesn’t stop Sid from asking for them.
He opens up a video on ‘how to stop procrastinating’—the tenth one this year.
Each video gave him a piece of actionable advice: use a 2-minute rule, use a 25-minute
rule, create an artificial deadline, create an artificial reward, overcome resistance,
sleep better, or deal with negative emotions.
And each piece of advice worked for a bit but ultimately failed in the long run, which
is why Sid is watching his tenth video on procrastination.
If any of the actionable advice actually worked, Sid would’ve stopped watching these kinds
of videos a long time ago.
Sid doesn’t realize that these videos only take him further into procrastination, because
every “how to” video tells him what he should do.
And “should do” leads to insincerity, and insincerity leads to endless procrastination.
Sid will spend his life looking for hacks and tips on how to overcome procrastination,
not seeing how far removed he is from a true solution.
He’ll spend his life asking “how can I do what I don’t want to do”, not realizing
that it’s a logical contradiction.
And that’s because Sid’s entire life is a contradiction.
He’s trying to become someone he’s not, searching for an answer to how someone becomes
what they cannot be.
And he’ll never find an answer because it doesn’t exist.
He’ll never stop procrastinating, and he’ll spend his life chasing a ghost.
As long as Sid lives a life that is not his own, as long as he follows the advice of other
people, believing their opinion, following the paths they’ve laid out for him, as long
as he lives his life based on the experiences and understanding of others instead of his
own, as long as he lives a life according to what he “should do” and not what he
genuinely wants to do, he will live an insincere life.
And as long as he lives an insincere life, he will never truly stop procrastinating.
And Sid might watch this video and begin looking for another “should”.
He will say, “I should be sincere,” or he will ask, “what should I do to be sincere?”
And by doing so, he will only fall deeper into the problem.