EDITOR'S NOTE: Chris Edington (or Puddle Pirate for you fellow Coasties) is one of SLANT's talented graphic designers. He wishes to drop some knowledge on you now.
I’m 28 years young and have gone through my stages of being lazy and unmotivated. You know, that feeling you get when you’re in bed and you’re just “skipping the gym” today, or perhaps “taking out the trash” can wait until tomorrow? Well, I’ll share a little theory I’ve been using the last few years that helped me do many things I would’ve otherwise found difficult. You know, stuff like serving four years in the military, getting a bachelors in 3 years, getting my dream job as a designer at SLANT, and turning a guitar hobby into a viable side job.
So here’s the trick...
Picture your life as 3 people (not stages, but people); Your past self, your present self and your future self. Now, using the “take the trash out” scenario, say you decide you’ll do it later. That’s your present self screwing over your future self. Later, when you get home, you find there are bugs everywhere, your cat knocked over the trash and you have a bigger mess to clean up. Now your present self is really pissed off at your past self for not taking care of some mundane task because he was being lazy.
The point? Your present self, should always be doing everything you can to make future self’s life as easy as possible, regardless how difficult it may be making your life at the present moment. That way, you can praise past self. For instance, I’m grateful past self worked his ass off in school so that present self could land a sweet job.
Grumpy cat hates you for being lazy.
The reason I have created this little theory is because I constantly hear people talk about “things they’re going to take care of” but never do because, subconsciously they rely on future self to take care of it. They want present self to have the time of their life and not be bothered with mundane tasks or chores. From the outside looking in, it’s one of the most frustrating things to watch, especially if you have to rely on that person for said tasks. And we all know those people.
So I say just buckle down and take care of things – that’s one less thing you have to take care of in the future, henceforth making your life easier. Like our boy, Tommy Jefferson once said “Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today”. Quit being freakin’ lazy (ok, i made up that last part).
Now get back to work.