What Are We Waiting For? Are We Procrastinators or Concrastinators?

Sometimes in life, it’s necessary to re-evaluate where we’re heading and whether or not we’re actually getting there. Are we drifting off course or are we going full steam ahead toward some intended destination? Depending on the outcome of our introspection, a course change may be required.

It has been said:

The road to hell is paved with the best of intentions.

So, too, it seems to be with our dreams, hopes and goals. We start with the best of intentions, but then either lose interest or get sidetracked by the minutiae of life. Kind of like New Year’s resolutions.

It seems like society also suffers from the same distractions and pressures on its time. We’re each individually so busy (with work, kids, ensuring that we get our daily bread) that we perhaps never step back and stop to look at the bigger picture.

With all of our unfocused activities, amounting to scratching blindly in the dirt, are we actually accomplishing anything (be it individually, or as a society)? Are we making any actual progress toward tangible goals that make the world a better place and provide equitably for future generations? Or will future generation simply have to continue scratching in the dirt to fend for themselves?

Is there a higher power that protects us and provides for us? If, we do nothing through the toil of our own hands, will we be provided for? Common sense tells us emphatially: no. Food, money, clothing, housing, medicine and other essentials will not simply fall into our laps without some concerted effort on our parts toward the goals of acquiring those things. This is simply my observation from going on 30 years of life. Things are not handed to you out of nowhere. There is not higher power looking out for you.

Sure, in western societies, we  often console ourselves with fanciful notions of an anthropomorphic old man in the sky who wants to help and provides for our needs.

But, try sitting on your hands and see if anything useful simply “falls into your lap” unrequested and unannounced. Not much will be forthcoming, would be my wager.

God won’t help those who won’t help themselves.

Or, so they occasionally say. This boils down to the notion that human productivity is a direct result of the actions of human hands. Did not human hands write the “good Book?” A theological / humanist debate for another day.

In any event, atheistic / humanistic mores aren’t the primary topic here, so the point should probably not be belabored. The point here is that our destiny rests in our own hands. Thus, we should take said destiny in the aforementioned hands and do something about it.

What can we do as a society and what can you do as an individual to meet societal and personal goals? For one thing, get off your rump! Stop putting things off that need to get done.

Organize your closet. Pay the bills on time. Get down to the animal shelter to volunteer. Join a tree-planting community service project. Help at a community garden. Be a Big Brother / Big Sister. Help your elderly neighbor with arthritic knees bring in their groceries or give them a food basket, or check up on them during the cold wintry months.

When you finish one task or achieve one goal, don’t sit on your laurels. Keep setting new goals and working toward achieving them! There seems to be a never-ending supply of things that could be done, if only people would get moving and do them.

I suggest that we start thinking in terms of procrastination and its pseudo-antonym concrastination. Yes, it’s perhaps a made up word (con- is the antithesis of pro-, thus pseudo-logically concrastination must be the opposite of procrastination). But, with a lack of better words jumping to mind,  and its amusement-inducing novelty value, it will have to do.

I for one have a number of things I’ve been putting off or putting on the back burner for various reasons (confidence, fiscal stability or otherwise).

Having never stopped to introspect, I have only intermittently considered the “bigger picture” amongst more mundane worldly cares (the aforementioned procurement of housing and daily bread). But when I have considered it, the biggest question always seems to come up:

What am I doing to make this world a better place for my children and my children’s children, when I leave it, than when I entered it?

It goes back to the old Boy Scout tradition of always trying to leave a camp site better than the way it was when you found it. Be that in cleaning up other people’s garbage, left in a hasty retreat, or chopping and leaving some firewood for the next campers who come along.

Are we as a society cleaning up after ourselves, or leaving the proverbial firewood for those who inhabit our living space once we leave it? Or are we being the inconsiderate prior tenants who use up all the available fire wood and add a pile of trash for the next inhabitants to clean up?

Sadly, I suggest we are doing the latter…

One wonders: if we were to all band together and do our part, could we accomplish noble goals within our lifetime?

Could we eliminate world hunger?

Can we eliminate or reduce the incidence of diseases like malaria or HIV / AIDS.

Are we capable of ensuring that every man, woman and child who needs / wants clothing and shelter receives it?

If we are capable of these things, why do we not do them?

Agreed it’s a monumental task. But does the fact that a job is hard mean that it should not be even attempted? Would man have landed on the moon or sent probes to other planets in the solar system if we shirked a chance to learn and grow simply because the job was difficult?

If we are capable of doing these things, can we do them responsibly, charitably and selflessly? IE, can we do these things without an proverbial economic “carrot,” rather doing them because they are the right thing to do?

Who shall we trust to ensure that these things get done? Shall we entrust these things to governments? Have they shown they can be effective and trustworthy in such pursuits? Or should we do as Gandhi proclaimed:

Be the change that you want to see in the world.

I propose a Concrastinator’s Creed, composed of two central pillars:

1) If not today, then when?
2) If not me, then who?

They denote an internalized sense of urgency and emphasize the idea of taking personal responsibility (for oneself and for the direction of society / civilization in general).

Perhaps, if we can take a step back, evaluate our priorities and decide what is most important personally, professionally, socially and culturally, we can identify specific reachable goals and actually work toward accomplishing them!

Who’s with me?