Taking Action

There are things I should do that are good for me.

I should eat well. I should exercise. I should stop procrastinating, spend less money, spend more time learning.

They aren’t original concepts. Most of us count those things as some of most important things we can do in life. They make our lives better – more fruitful, more enjoyable, more long-lasting.

Yet, for the most part, I can’t do any of them without forced motivation.

When it comes to working, I can’t tear myself away from anything not called work. So I’ve installed a device on my Mac called Freedom – a program that literally shuts me down from the world, turning off non-local networks until the time period of my choosing.

In order to get those networks back (I can e-mail on our local server, but I can’t use the Internet) I have to simply let time run out or restart my computer. I’m forced to be productive. And it works.

In order to lose weight, I forced myself to track everything I ate. It worked, and since canceling the Weight Watchers online program I have become lax again. (Blame it on the stress of trying to sell a house. That seems to be my easy answer.)

What it boils down to is a difference between concept and action. My plans are grandiose, but my deeds are lacking. I can spend hours pouring over a handful of photographs, but I can’t manage to stop myself from eating a donut. Or checking my online basketball league just one more time.

This is the disease that separates the lazy from the active. It’s what stops me from becoming better than what I am. And it drags down on me every day.

It drags down on all of us.

And we thought having more choices made us more enlightened people.