Mental Traps by Andre Kukla

Author:Andre Kukla [Kukla, André]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-37498-1
Publisher: Doubleday Canada
Published: 2006-04-20T04:00:00+00:00

Procrastination is a resistance to engaging in a new task even though we seem to be unoccupied. We’ve discussed one cause of this phenomenon: the inertial competition generated by the backlog of unfinished business. Here we seem to be unoccupied because what we’re occupied with—the backlog—is always present. Another cause of procrastination is that the new task may find us already busy doing-nothing. Now doing-nothing, like the fixated activity of suspension, is indistinguishable from being unoccupied when viewed from the outside. Let’s refer to the state of being unoccupied as the state of not-doing-anything. Not-doing-anything means not having an agenda, not trying to achieve any result. Doing-nothing, on the other hand, occurs when we resolve not to do anything. Like every other project, doing-nothing generates a certain amount of resistance against starting anything else. Viewed from the outside, it may appear that we hesitate to start even though we have nothing to do. In reality, the new task intrudes upon our planned nothingness. If we were really not-doing-anything, there would be nothing to intrude upon and we would not procrastinate.

Since doing-nothing causes us to procrastinate, it would be wise to give up the habit altogether. This doesn’t mean that we should always be busy. On the contrary, a certain amount of not-doing-anything is necessary in the economy of every living being. Even automobiles need to be turned off and allowed to cool. But doing-nothing is actually incompatible with not-doing-anything. It’s a form of keeping busy. Not-doing-anything is a subtle frame of mind, however. As soon as we resolve to attain it, it’s lost. Instead we make ourselves busy doing-nothing. We become guarded, tense, determined, and jealous of our time. Not-doing-anything isn’t something we can decide to do. There are no instructions for it, since instructions can only tell us how to do things. The attempt not to do anything therefore always fails in its objective. This is the downfall of many vacations. The problem of how not to do anything will be discussed again in the last chapter.

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