Procrastinate with intention
Build the habit of responsibility by leaning into irresponsibility
We have many demands in our lives, things that we must do but don’t really gain any pleasure from. We also have desires in our lives, things that we actually enjoy or gain satisfaction from doing.
We want to do the latter but feel forced to do the former.
Unfortunately, we often land in the no man’s land in between, neither doing what we need to do but not doing anything we really enjoy either. It’s the worst of both worlds, we’re not fulfilling our responsibilities or making progress and we are not enjoying our lives.
It’s a hugely demoralizing way to live your life.
But the reason we get stuck in this purgatory is not because we are irresponsible. If we were truly irresponsible we would blithely do whatever we really wanted to do, with no regard for the impact on other people or our future selves.
Instead we feel tension in this situation because we all actually want to be responsible. No one wants to blow things off.
It is a deep human drive to be responsible to the demands of our tribe since that was directly related to our own physical survival for the majority of humanity’s existence on the planet. This deep caveman instinct to feel responsible is not something we can easily ignore.
But in our modern world, as with many of our instincts, this drive is no longer tied to our survival. It’s a vestige from a more dangerous existence. We have the luxury of choice, of enjoyment, of moving up Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs away from mere survival towards a deeper, more fulfilling satisfaction.
We know we are capable of better things and more meaningful lives beyond an animalistic drive to just be alive another day. But that personal desire wars with our instinctual responsibility to demands of living in a society, of having a job, or a family.
On one hand there’s what we really want to do, and on the other, there’s this pressure we put on ourselves to feel responsible. But if we were to do what we wanted, what gives us pleasure, instead of what we feel we should be doing to be responsible, then our instinctual core caveman becomes scared because we have seemingly made a selfish choice that could kick us out of the tribe.
The way we attempt to resolve this tension is by not making that choice, by procrastinating. Procrastination isn’t saying we’re not going to do something, it’s saying we are going to do it later. We pretend that we are going to follow the responsible pathway, just not right now.
But the only way we can maintain this fiction is by also not doing anything for our personal joy. Because if we were to actually do something fun or really meaningful to us instead of the thing that we are avoiding then we can no longer pretend we are being responsible. It would mean we are for sure owning up to the fact that we are blowing things off.
If we tell ourselves we are just delaying doing the thing that we feel we should, then that leaves open the possibility that we will eventually do it. But once we do something fun, then we feel like we are rewarding ourselves for nothing, that we are willfully ignoring our duties.
It’s not that we care about being responsible, it’s that we care about being thought of as being responsible.
The real problem is that by avoiding responsibility to others but not wanting to be called out for that, we are also avoiding responsibility to ourselves.
If we avoided doing the work we had to and instead did something we got true pleasure or joy from then that would be taking responsibility for our own happiness, which is scary in its own way.
After all, who are we to be bold and brave enough to be happy? It is making a statement that we value ourselves, and to a certain extent, that we value ourselves above other people in the form of the responsibility we are shirking.
Our inner caveman will freak out but our intellect needs to remember that we are no longer in danger of being eaten by a tiger if we get rejected by the tribe. And further, we are unlikely to actually be rejected by the tribe. And further beyond that, we can always find a new tribe if we are “kicked out”.
This means that the choice we face is not between being responsible and doing nothing, it is between being responsible, doing nothing, or doing something meaningful to ourselves.
If you’re going to blow something off, do it honestly, push through your guilt and do something interesting or genuinely fun.
You may still be being irresponsible in terms of other people but at least you are owning that irresponsibility and doing something that balances it out a bit, if only for yourself.
And once you take responsibility for yourself by doing something truly pleasurable or meaningful rather than drugging yourself with electronics, or food, or sleep, or actual drugs that makes it easier to be responsible in general.
When we practice grabbing hold of something good instead of avoiding something bad, that is practice for an overall sense of responsibility and agency that will begin to help you to engage with the things that are not as pleasurable.
So don’t view procrastination as purely a negative, it could also be an opportunity to take responsibility for yourself. Leaning into your it is the way to get out of it.
Being responsible to yourself is a pathway towards being responsible to other people.
