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| Hamlet Contemplates Doing Something |
It has come to my attention that the less tasks I undertake
the less busy I am and the more time I have for other things, such as relaxing.
As a matter of fact, the only logical explanation for doing anything at all is
to get it out of the way so that later you can relax. And the truth is, most
things don’t need doing in the first place so you’re just putting one extra
step in between you and relaxation time.
Always put off until tomorrow what can be done today,
because by tomorrow conditions might change. If they do not, you will it least
have an extra day to come up with a reason you shouldn’t have to do it
tomorrow, either. If you follow in this advice long enough it is very likely
that some busybody will tire of waiting for you and do it himself, or else
people will adapt and forget a problem exists at all. People adjust rather quickly
once realistic hope fades from the equation.
Thinking about doing something is okay, but it's a step in the
wrong direction. If you do it properly, it is a nice form of relaxation to
contemplate actually accomplishing something. But sometimes such flights of
fancy lead to inspiration, which is quite dangerous, in that it leads to actually
start something, and that is the kiss of death. Starting something is like
signing a piece of paper an Army recruiter puts in front of you: you’ve
committed to a long stretch of time in which you will suddenly find yourself
wed to work you have no interest in performing.
There has never been a time when I started a project that my
inspiration has outlasted the task. 15 minutes into even the simplest job will
reveal complications I never imagined possible. But there’s no stopping at that
point: even stopping will require work just to get back to where you were
before you started. If you quit and walk away then you’ll be left with a mess
of tools lying around that were neatly packed away before motivation got the
better of you. Not only will you have yet another messy area in your house, you
will have that sense of failure hanging over you as you settle into your place
on the couch and try to watch television. There will be a sense of guilt you
cannot shake, and guilt is a very dangerous thing, because it will lead in the
future to you trying to redeem yourself by starting some other unnecessary
project and seeing it through to completion.
And say you do carry a project to completion, what then? Say
you’ve found the intestinal fortitude to build a garage or a swimming pool: it’s
only going to lead to more work. That pool will have to be cleaned frequently,
that garage will need painting and repairs. Whereas if you had simply sat on
your couch for the amount of time it took you to accomplish something, you
would now have far more time to sit around now. Not only that, you’ve established
a very bad precedent, one which others will then try to hold you to.
Now you may ask me if it was worth all the energy it took me
to write this. I would say that if it stopped a single person from doing some
unnecessary task, then yes it was. And writing about work is really no
different from talking about work, and as we know talk is cheap. I would go so
far as to say that thinking about work is the finest ways to react to work. One
has never dirtied one’s hands thinking about work, never had to make multiple
trips to the hardware store, never cracked one’s knuckles or made a mess by
thinking. As a matter of fact, the more you think about doing something, the
less likely you will find the time to actually start on it. Just ask Hamlet. It
was thinking too much that prevented him from killing his uncle. More than
that, he thought himself out of killing himself with a dagger. And that would
have made a mess which someone would have had to clean up.
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