“Never put off till tomorrow what may be done day after tomorrow just as well.”
Mark Twain
I, too, am scared
I sit in front of my computer screen determined to write a blog for the week but I am still frozen with fear.
I suppose I am even grateful that I made it to my computer. That much I now seem to know how to do.
I know that I have to write my blog weekly and what usually used to come up for me was that I would find all sorts of reasons not to get to the blog. Somehow there was always something else to do. Most common was checking emails – perhaps something important needed attention!
And then, after having checked my emails, I somehow felt it necessary to check the latest news or to read another’s blog and ‘get enlightened’.
Day after day, week after week, month after month, my life had often been about distraction and keeping busy. Well, for some people, it is relatively easy to rationalise.
1. I’ve worked hard, I need a break.
2. i’m really tired today.
3. I didn’t sleep well last night.
4. I’m hungry – chocolate or ice-cream.
5. I’m horny – sex or masturbation.
6. I think I have a headache.
7. (Fill your’s in here)
The list is endless.
And I guess, pressured by deadlines, I got done what I had to, under duress and fear.
Funny thing was that once it got done, I felt great.
But, oh, the period leading up to actually beginning the task was often excruciating.
Here’s the thing.
When one is 20 years old, there seems to be no end to life; no hint of mortality or limit. Same for 30 I guess and 40, too. and also 50, and, hell, 60 as well. and then at 70 …
Despite increasing longevity, many people die in their 60’s and 70’s.
Imagine being 70 and facing a blog, or finally telling someone you love them, or settling a score, or forgiving someone, or apologising, or taking stock. Yes, you can put it off for tomorrow or the next day or the next day or the next …
Hang on, how many next days are there? At 70 years old, maybe only 2 years more of life is reasonable to expect. That’s 730 or so days.
Miss one and it means 729 days left. Miss another and it’s 728 days left. Get sick and it’s another 5 days off so 723 days left. And then tax time comes and it’s another week of hunting for figures and papers so only 716 days left.
Etc etc.
Do you actually have time to waste?
There is a wonderful paradox, The Surprise Hanging, which is as follows:
A judge tells a condemned prisoner that he will be hanged at noon on one weekday in the following week but that the execution will be a surprise to the prisoner. He will not know the day of the hanging until the executioner knocks on his cell door at noon that day. He also tells him that is the prisoner is not surprised, the hanging will be suspended completely and the prisoner will be freed.
Having reflected on the judge’s comments, the prisoner is suddenly excited and relieved since he feels he can truly escape the hanging merely by a process of logical elimination.
His reasoning is as follows. He begins by concluding that the “surprise hanging” can’t be on Friday, since if he hasn’t been hanged by Thursday, there is only one day left – Friday – and it therefore would not be a surprise if he were to be hanged on Friday. Since the judge’s sentence stipulated that the hanging would be a surprise hanging only, he concludes that it cannot occur on Friday.
He then reasons that the surprise hanging cannot be on Thursday either, because Friday has already been eliminated and if he hasn’t been hanged by Wednesday night, the hanging must occur on Thursday, making a Thursday hanging not a surprise either. By similar reasoning he concludes that the hanging can also not occur on Wednesday, Tuesday or Monday.
Joyfully he retires to his cell confident that the hanging will not occur at all.
The next week, the executioner knocks on the prisoner’s door at noon on Wednesday — which, despite all the above, was an utter surprise to him. Everything the judge said came true.
Well, none of you dear reader, faces a hanging (I hope), but each of you faces the inevitable countdown of your days here on earth.
At 20 years old, and given that you may live till 75, that is 55 years or 20,000 days.
I know that 20,000 days seems limitless but pass they will, and the really terrible thing is that when this reality finally hits home, it is only then that the enormity of wasted life is felt.
Given that there are endless types of commitments and obligations which need attention, just imagine a way forward to be able to face these obligations to yourselves, to your partners, children, parents, friends, without the terrible anxiety which currently accompanies so many of you.
I’ll try to offer something in my next blog.
November 2015 – Michael Cohn
