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Procrastination, Thinking Too Much and... Self-Help

by Caroline
(UK)

You know, one of my problems (of many) is that I THINK about a lot of things and do very few of them.

I have flashes of inspirational motivation and then it all goes out of the window. then I get miserable because I'm a waste of space, and then I do less and become an even bigger waste of space. :-)

Does any of this sound familiar?

When I'm somewhere near rock bottom I decide I really must 'do something'/'get help'/'buy a book'/'see the doc'. And I feel better for thinking these thoughts. So I buy a book or "look" at a few internet selfhelp sites; but I don't read the book, and when I download a couple of articles or ebooks from a website I do feel pleased with myself - but I still dont read anything.

I tidy my desk and feel even more pleased with myself. I forget about making a positive effort to sort my life out - its not really that bad! - and drift back into my cycle of disorganized uselessness.

My dogs can depend on me, I never let them down. This has been going on for about 5 years and I'm getting older all the time. I am self-employed, do just enough to get by because I like to spend time walking in the countryside around my home with my dogs.

I'm not ambitious but I'm dissatisfied with life, I'm not competitive but would like to be more successful.

Dear Doctor, please help! :-)

Caroline

PS My photography (and my dogs) make a big difference in my life

STEVE COMMENT: Caroline sent this story to me in an email and I asked her if I could include it here. And she said yes! (Obviously!) What follows is part of my email reply...

What I would say to what you've said (and what I relate to) is there's an awful lot of 'thinking' involved in your life. And thinking is bad! It's official. I'm sure it's even worse than the Credit Crunch or obesity. Lol. (You wake up one day with a certain set of thoughts and feel depressed. You wake up the next IDENTICAL day and you're as happy as Larry (on a Happy Larry day!). Thank goodness for dogs, eh! Ooops, I don't have any dogs...!)

You know, I could recommend some books for you to read! About the ills of 'thinking', and much more... Guy Finley's Life of Learning