Responsibility Makes Me Feel Ill
May. 29th, 2010 10:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snousleFor years now, I've been trying to uncover the roots of procrastination with only modest success.
At least after watching it through multiple jobs and environments, I can isolate the common factors. It has nothing to do with the task at hand. The core problem is that when I am faced with something I could do, I'm enthusiastic. When faced with something I have to do, I get such a sick feeling in my stomach that it is hard to even look at it. When I work on something, I am full of anxiety about it not getting done. When it is actually not getting done, there is no anxiety. The ball gets rolling eventually, and there is enough momentum to finish the task. I have never committed to anything I did not accomplish. But getting there is hell on earth.
It really does not matter what it is. It seems that I'm equally unhappy with anything that involves a schedule, a deliverable, or a deadline. And it's tragic, because I could accomplish twice as much if it were not for this swamp of unhappiness I have to slog through nearly every time I actually need to get something done. Or I could do the same things much, much, much more easily. In retrospect, the cost of this in financial terms alone would make $150/hr therapy sessions look absurdly cheap, but I have never taken that path.
The concept of "workcrastination" has helped - if I'm going to procrastinate, I at least do it via something productive, like vacuuming, or washing dishes. Because I'm not lazy - my basic instinct is to work all the time. Yeah, we have a REAL clean house, LOL. The idea of "incrementalism" helps too - working without a goal, just following a few simple, immediate rules that get things moving in vaguely the right direction, which cuts down on the anxiety angle. But that still doesn't solve the core problem.
Perhaps related to this is the sense that everything I do is basically an embarrassment. I hate telling people what I do for a living. I don't even know what to call it, nothing I might say sounds right. It closely matches the definition of impostor syndrome. My to-do list is huge and terrifying, but now that I keep a much more detailed "was-done" list, I find those things carry little sense of satisfaction. This springs in part fro a sense of larger-scale futility, the feeling that almost everything we have been taught to value in the modern world is, in the end, just a distraction. So why am I contributing to it?
It must be nice to live a life in harmony with one's instincts, where one's motivations match neatly to actual needs. I wonder if that's even possible, or if it ever was.
At least after watching it through multiple jobs and environments, I can isolate the common factors. It has nothing to do with the task at hand. The core problem is that when I am faced with something I could do, I'm enthusiastic. When faced with something I have to do, I get such a sick feeling in my stomach that it is hard to even look at it. When I work on something, I am full of anxiety about it not getting done. When it is actually not getting done, there is no anxiety. The ball gets rolling eventually, and there is enough momentum to finish the task. I have never committed to anything I did not accomplish. But getting there is hell on earth.
It really does not matter what it is. It seems that I'm equally unhappy with anything that involves a schedule, a deliverable, or a deadline. And it's tragic, because I could accomplish twice as much if it were not for this swamp of unhappiness I have to slog through nearly every time I actually need to get something done. Or I could do the same things much, much, much more easily. In retrospect, the cost of this in financial terms alone would make $150/hr therapy sessions look absurdly cheap, but I have never taken that path.
The concept of "workcrastination" has helped - if I'm going to procrastinate, I at least do it via something productive, like vacuuming, or washing dishes. Because I'm not lazy - my basic instinct is to work all the time. Yeah, we have a REAL clean house, LOL. The idea of "incrementalism" helps too - working without a goal, just following a few simple, immediate rules that get things moving in vaguely the right direction, which cuts down on the anxiety angle. But that still doesn't solve the core problem.
Perhaps related to this is the sense that everything I do is basically an embarrassment. I hate telling people what I do for a living. I don't even know what to call it, nothing I might say sounds right. It closely matches the definition of impostor syndrome. My to-do list is huge and terrifying, but now that I keep a much more detailed "was-done" list, I find those things carry little sense of satisfaction. This springs in part fro a sense of larger-scale futility, the feeling that almost everything we have been taught to value in the modern world is, in the end, just a distraction. So why am I contributing to it?
It must be nice to live a life in harmony with one's instincts, where one's motivations match neatly to actual needs. I wonder if that's even possible, or if it ever was.
