#25 Epitome of Wisdom

To walk the talk is not a walk in the park

     Basically, we have an undeniable habit of not practising things we’d promised, occasionally, if not most of the time.

     Of course, we can argue there are reasons which hindered the efforts from keeping our words but when the talk and action are not in line, we’re pulling someone’s leg.

     A promise not to repeat mistakes, try to perform better in examination or even pretending to be sick in order to skip classes would be what most people have done.

     It still cannot be considered as lying, though, because there are stark disparity between lying and failure to keep a promise.

     Lying indicates the telling of false statements with intention even knowing what repercussion it might bring afterward. Whereas the latter indicates that a person has no desire to go back on his words initially, but under certain circumstances, the promises failed to materialize, for whatever reasons.

     For instance, your mum asked you to put all the laundry into the washing machine but you are too busy with your video games and the dirty clothes are never washed even after the next day. Another good example would be keep telling yourself that you will do a task later and the delay goes on.

     Talking about myself, I was extremely masterful at procrastination which in turn, I felt had held me back in many ways.

     I can always put my assignments on hold first just because I wanted to catch a movie. I can always go to bed later because I wanted to trawl the web reading sports news. And the list goes on.

     Sometimes, it resulted in the habit of delaying the works which we are supposed to do. Our mind keep telling ourselves to do a task later because we think there is still plenty of time for that. But when the moment of doing that arrives, we are simply running out of time or don’t feel like doing that again. Then, the cycle repeats itself.

     Interestingly, I was taken aback when I had the chance to meet my little cousin, Carmen, recently. It’s astonishing to see how determined she see out everything she’s promised to do (I can see that from her behavior and body language because she was staying temporarily at my home). I felt ashamed as a kid can be that wholeheartedly fervent whereas as an adult, I failed miserably in this area.

     I did not realize how impactful this was until I started noticing that my philosophies and principles have been slowly edging towards a more lackadaisical edge.

     Nobody is perfect and everybody has weaknesses. It just depends on if we ever make a conscious effort to right them.

     Here are the five reasons I’d listed out on the pros of eliminating procrastination and doing exactly what you say (or think) without any delay:

1.      You’ll never push things to the eleventh hour

     Often, we have a wide array of ‘To-do lists’ when it matters. This is because we neglected their importance and not knowing the debilitating consequences of doing things at last minute.

     Well, since the ‘bad attitude’ is now gone, you will find yourself more relaxed instead of feeling panic in meeting deadlines.

2.      You’ll earn the respect (or trust) of others

     Not only do we like to work with people who are trustworthy and responsible, we are also keen on reliable counterparts. Definitely the attention now shifts to the people around us.

     They are more likely to place their trust on us more than ever. It’s always fascinating to see how much people like us for being steadfast, hardworking and reliable.

3.      People around us will feel motivated

     Maintaining good attitude consistently is no easy task. Perhaps once in a while, when you are feeling tired or ‘lazy’, you put things aside again. To understand this, procrastination is an overwhelming, all-consuming voice in the end. It can easily infect people of any age, all the time.

     Imagine. What if the boss of a company is a slow-starter? For sure the staffs have the tendency to be sluggish in their work attitudes as well. It is true that model breeds action. Procrastination is highly contagious; it can affect every one of us before we realize it. In contrast, if we don’t procrastinate, it works the other way around.

4.      You’ll feel happier

     Here, it seems to have general correlation of idea between this and the first point. The key is, however, Point 1 refers to how delightful a person can be to not prolonging an action. The latter tends to explain the joy of being a man of action rather than talk.

5.      You’re a winner

     As I’ve repeatedly mentioned in this column, we are always in the process of growth. In every aspects of life, there is room for improvement. Since transgressions cannot be avoided, all we can do is just to embrace past mistakes and file them up for future references.

     The moment you feel you have achieved the aforementioned points then you are a natural winner. Life is not about winning because the ability to conquer and win over yourself matter more than anything else.

By: Vincent Ti