Practice and Procrastination

One of the prescribed antidotes to procrastination is to realize you might die tomorrow, or fall off the wagon.

But then, why would you even bother starting today?

If we were accumulating skills and attributes, there’d be no sense in pursuing that accumulation.

But with practice, something else is developed… and various cultures built around practices have recognized that this imminent potential of death increases urgency of practice (for example, to be ready at the liminal moment).

This is true of any practice, anything cultivating human development. It matters (in spite, and because, of this impermanence), unlike the skills accumulated. The skills and such are containers for that practice, they are fodder for that development.

“Memento mori“ might make some things less urgent (the skills), some things more urgent (the development) - yet often they might look very similar, if we fail to understand that where one stands in relation to what one does changes everything