Your phone’s alarm goes off in the morning, you roll over and hit snooze.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Maybe you have multiple alarms set up, because you know that aren’t getting up until at least the fifth alarm.
You get a phone call, but you screen it and send it to voicemail. You add new movies and TV shows to your watch list on STAN or Netflix, you add a favourite on YouTube.
You Shazam a song to download it later and you ‘boomerang’ your emails so you can deal with them later.
You let the dishes soak, you make your phone reminder ‘come back in 1 hour’.
We record a show to watch it back later and make plans we never follow through on.
Read also | Huge balloon festival to soar above Mudgee
You reply ‘Maybe’ to a Google invite and you put off going to the gym.
You’ll get around to it, one day, maybe later.
You’ll write that letter, send that text you’ve been sitting on. The Tweet sitting in draft.
The world is rich with entertainment and distraction but we keep putting it off.
We defer our enjoyment only to move onto something else we too will defer.
You’ll fix the light and the kitchen cupboard. You said you’ll mow the lawn and wash the car, but not just yet.
‘We should catch up one day’, says the person who can’t commit.
‘Maybe after Christmas’, it’s so busy this time of year.
Then it’ll be after New Year, then it’s Easter.
You’re staring at an assignment that’s due in two weeks, you could start it now but you could also just cram two days before.
You’ll finally get around to reading your backlog of books on your holiday and you’ll finish that stack of games in your library.
You tell everyone that this year you’ll learn to knit/run/cartwheel/skateboard/cook, whatever. But life takes over and you never get around to it, like everything else.
Life, however, should be about what we do and not what’s in between, you can’t be afraid to fail or else you’ll never try.
It can be so hard now to live in the moment and let go of ‘later’. But if you’re willing, try it sometime.
Go somewhere quiet, without any distractions, no phone or anything.
Close your eyes. Take a big breath in and very slowly release, noticing how it feels.
Try and take that practice and apply it to as many aspects of life as you can.
Stop putting life off.