procrastination and the parable of the talents

The parable of the talents.

We are all under the yoke of life. Life can seem too much and overwhelming. We could escape responsibility, and escape into video games, TV, drugs and alcohol. This temptation to escape for myself is brought on by expecting too much. I want to achieve so much, but I never do anything! Placing too much of a burden on my projected future self. There has to be a balance between expectation of future results and what I can achieve with my actions right now.

There is an old phrase: “Enjoy where you are, as well as where you are going”

Perhaps a better way of saying this that might be more illuminating is:

“Love what you have as well as loving what you want”.

This way, your self-esteem is not totally anchored in the future, you are not held hostage by the dangers of the future. By appreciating where I am now, there is not as much at risk in the future. Therefore, you will not procrastinate as much, since there is not so much at stake on your actions in the right now! Also, if things go wrong, we will not be totally ruined by our failures. When we do not live up to our own high expectations of ourselves.

We are either focussed on planning for the future Goods, or we are appreciating and loving things at the present moment; or we are just experiencing the moment without judgement. What a relief it can be in work, the buddhist, when you chop wood, chop wood!. You are not suffering the torment of future problems. Which is probably why we love our activity addictions, TV, video games, food, etc.

Turning to the parable of the talents(Matthew 25:14–30). When you have unbearable expectation for the future, you avoid responsibility and action, that are actually quite simple. It's so easy to be stuck in the future frame of mind. Worrying about the future. Should I do this? How can I avoid all stumbling blocks.Should I aim for that? Or should I aim for something greater? Just to clarify. Talent is referring to something like gold, or money. Not a skill or an ability.

In the parable of the talents, the person who hid away his talent lost everything. His master expected him to do something profitable with the money. But he chose to hide it away, until the master came back. The moral being he was so afraid of losing, so risk averse and afraid, even what he had was taken away from him. He knew rationally, that if he had taken the money and put it in a bank that he would have made a small profit. But he did not do even this! This is the paradox of procrastination, we know rationally what we ought to be doing, but we do not do it.

One lesson from this is that it's better to do something small, than nothing at all. To quote richard rohr, it's not about doing it right, it's just about doing it. We cannot control the results of our actions, but we need to act. It's better to do something small, humble, an action with humility, than it is to be magnificent. Love overcomes fear allowing us to take action(Im not saying we eliminate fear). If we put ourselves into a loving frame of mind, rather than a fearful one; we can then act. Love conquers all and it will conquer procrastination.