Tomorrow Never Comes

Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task.  ~William James

For as long as I can remember my friends have told me I should eat healthier, maybe workout.  Over the last few years, this last one especially, I’ve watched the pounds add up, and continually told myself I’d start working out soon, later, tomorrow.  It’s been this way with many of my goals in life.  They were abstract, not something I felt I could actually reach out and grasp, but a light at the end of the eternal tunnel.

I’ve been having a bit of a paradigm shift lately.  I’ve been making the most of my 3 months off.  I wake up early, work out first thing in the morning, shower, have a healthy lunch, do Unreal training, etc.  My days have been extremely productive.  At first this schedule was really hard to maintain.  Waking up early did not come naturally to me, I was incredibly out of shape so working out gave me a headache and made me feel like crap, and I’d spent years making a habit of procrastination.  Breaking these routines and excuses was tough.  But I forced myself.

As I caught up on everything I’d let slide, all the things I swore I’d do someday, I began to feel elated…  Moment to moment life felt so much better knowing there wasn’t a dozen tasks hanging over my head.  When I have a free moment, it truly feels free.  NOTHING is nagging at me, and instead of guilt for not doing what I know I should be, I feel pride in the reward of a truly free moment.

It’s like I’ve been in debt for most of my life.  And I don’t mean financially.  I owed this many tasks, to that many causes.  But I wasn’t budgeting, and in reality I was falling further behind from my goals, not catching up.

I’m finally catching up, finally making tangible progress.  And the light at the end of the tunnel is getting bigger as I get closer.  There will always be another goal after, but for the first time I’m actually making constant progress towards real goals, and every day offers their own rewards on the way.

I’ve learned procrastination is the enemy of happiness.  All the things you put off, you put in between yourself and your goals, your happiness.  You are opting for more obstacles, just to maintain your inertia.  And those obstacles pile up until they obstruct the light from reaching you.  It’s time to clear the tracks, full steam ahead.  The light at the end of the tunnel is not abstract, it’s there and can be reached.