Here's something I just figured out; I wish I'd learned it sooner, but better late than never. Hopefully it'll help you too, either by making you recognize the problem in yourself or by spurring you to identify the root of your problem. And we all have problems.
One of my problems is procrastination. Particularly, as Eliot so nicely put it, "Distracted from distractions by distractions." Here I am, sitting in my dank little studio, the rough draft of my dissertation sitting before me. The deadline hangs over my head like the sword of Damocles. And I'm surfing the Internet. Do I realize this? Not always: sometimes it only hits me that two hours have slipped by while giggling my way through LOLCats. (Yes, it's true - I love that stuff.) Of course the time can't be recovered, so I have no choice but to drag my discouraged ass away from the monitor and...work. But it's 11pm or whatever, so no point.
Last night I ran across two long paragraphs that need serious work. Not putting the same material into new words, but recasting the whole damn thing from scratch. It went in the direction I wanted it to go, but the elements were wrong and the formulation unclear. I have to rewrite it from the ground up. - Ouch. (I should be used to it by now, having rewritten half a chapter already. But apparently some things you just don't get used to.) Did I start that rewriting? No, I checked my email. And Facebook. And did searches on authors that have no relevance whatsoever to my dissertation. In between Web pages, I'd jot down something on the back of an envelope, vaguely dissertation-related. But you can't get anything done that way. As soon as I realized the absurdity of it all, I packed it in. It was 11pm, and I couldn't think straight, so I just went to bed - not that I got any sleep.
Today I picked up where I'd left off, and got through a few more pages. This time I tried to work out a logical question: why conditionals are asymmetrical. Why does P imply Q, but not the other way around? The truth table describes the asymmetry, it doesn't explain it. I finally got it (it has to do with dependence), but my scribblings and citations didn't quite bear out. Hmmm...what about those files I've been meaning to organize?
And then it hit me *dork!*: I distract myself when something doesn't fulfil my expectations. Since nobody's around to kick my ass back on track, two hours can easily get lost before I know what happened. It's like I said, "Oh, that didn't work. Screw it." The rational response would be to say, "OK, why didn't it work out? What's the real answer, as opposed to the one I'd believed?" Then and only then would I stand to learn something new, better than what I'd thought before.
So now it comes down to this: I'll find a way to make a habit of asking that question whenever experience runs counter to my expectations. Or die trying. (Better the former than the latter.) It's not my only problem, but it'll be one less to worry about when I get over it.
There's a lesson here. (I dislike moralizing, but this seems important enough to add.) If you've got the same kind of problem, take up the same solution. But even if you don't distract yourself when events let you down, you probably have other problems you need to solve. For what it's worth, I'm suggesting you keep watch for them. Find that nasty habit - big or little, it doesn't matter. Dig up the reason why you do it, and find a way to get yourself back on track. You'll be glad you did. Because you'll discover - no, experience a bit more of the real meaning of "The truth will set you free." You don't have to be religious to know how true that statement is.
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2 comments:
You know, I do the exact same thing, but I read it differently.
For me, it's a self confidence issue. I'm afraid that I won't be able to do something, or figure something out, or that something's not going to work out the way I want it to, so I procrastinate. I do anything I can to avoid it, etc.
This is the sole reason why I procrastinate and/or avoid any number of things I really want to do. -- This happens to be one of the things I like least about myself -- especially when applied to interpersonal relationships (e. g. -- maybe that person doesn't really want to hear what I have to say, so I'll call... later...)
If I may, it comes down to this. The feeling of confidence is an evaluation - an effect at bottom, not a cause. If a feedback cycle develops, it can become habitual.
But I don't really believe it's the root of the problem. Because feelings are responses to something; self-confidence is an evaluation, which means it's based on some action or event. It then becomes a question of what.
I find that kind of liberating. It says, "OK, a history of self-confidence is no fun, but it's not intrinsic to my being. It doesn't have to be this way." This can be found in many pop-psychology books, which is humbling - I'm the only one it's going to seem like a real epiphany to. But that's OK, because I had to figure it out myself anyhow. That's the trick.
Since you have a different history, the roots of your problem will probably lie in different soil. And that's OK. You'll figure it out yourself, like we all have to do. That's why I made the post: to help out a little, if possible.
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