[In]action

Disclaimer: Lately I have felt more prone to blog when I am in a melancholy mood, so if the tone of my posts seems a little off, please forgive me, I'm not quite sure why I feel like blogging to de-stress and clear my head lately... That having been said, I will move on to today's subject, action! (Or lack thereof)

Now let me make this clear, I am not talking about the kind of action you think of associated with movies, like lasers and explosions and very well choreographed martial arts, I am simply referring to action in the sense of "doing something." And reflecting on the problems with not acting. (Again, don't think of this word in a movie-esque sense) Inacting is one of the easiest things in the world to do, especially for me. I have many ideas and opportunities all of the time that end in inaction. But, how can this be when I read so many books about taking action and so forth, how can this be when I know that inaction is much worse than acting and then failing because at least there is a chance of succeeding if you try. How can this be when I know and have oft recited the platitude that "you miss 100% percent of the shots you don't take," and I don't even like basketball! Well, I figured it out. I searched my own brain for the thought processes that were allowing me to circumnavigate around all of this knowledge and justify a course of inaction. I outline this particular stream of consciousness here, just in case it is similar to your own, and in hopes that identifying it will make it easier to overcome. But be warned, I often have a difficult time translating streams of consciousness and abstract thoughts into coherent paragraphs, but I will do my best, so bear with me...

It is not hard to identify the demotivating factor, because it is almost always the same... fear. But this much I have always known, of course fear causes inaction, but to date knowing this has rarely helped me to overcome my issues with inaction. I remember my best teacher, Bro. Little once explained to me how many people would rather have the possibility of success, than know for certain whether or not they would actually be a success. He explained that he had a friend who for years and years would talk about a business idea he had, and loved to bask in the praise that people offered when he explained the idea he would eventually implement. Finally, Bro. Little offered to help him get his idea going and make it a reality, but his friend declined. From an observer's standpoint, his friend seems absolutely ridiculous! Who would rather have the possibility of success than the real thing? Well, I think most of us, but I could be projecting.

I did not understand how I could go against everything I believed about seizing opportunities, until two things happened recently. The first thing is that we talked about time in my family recreation class. We discussed how valuable we hold time in society, how efficiency and busy-ness are highly regarded virtues in our culture. We discusses a book called "In praise of slowness: challenging the cult of speed" and it got my mind going about time, and how in order to feel valued by society we must be busy, and not waste time. The second thing is that I watched "Dead Poets Society" and realized that I really do always feel like there is more than enough future left to do everything I need/want to, but of course, there is not, mortality is carries with it an inevitable, unknowable deadline, by which time you had better have done what you wanted.

Ok, now that I have got that out, I think I can explain my thought process. First, fear makes it possible for me to convince myself that the endeavor I am undertaking cannot succeed. It leaves no room for the possibility of success. Once my subconscious has convinced itself that failure is inevitable, it is easy to conclude that any time and effort applied to aforementioned task would be wasted, in addition to resulting in the sadness affiliated with failure. The mind then decides that facing possible failure it can handle, and wasting time it can do, but both combined is not worth the risk, especially since we are already secretly convinced of our inevitable failure. I can then go about wasting time in some other way that does not involve any risks, and therefore there is no possibility of failure, something that my emotions are not invested in, like Facebook or YouTube.

So, having now identified how I think this awful process works, I am hoping that I will be better able to avoid it in the future. Here's to hoping. Well, I better get going, I have a few calls to make to potential customers for a business idea I have been working on lately, but maybe I will go check my messages and notifications first...