Time Always Moves Forward, Whether You Make Progress or Not
When I don’t feel like doing anything or when I procrastinate, I’m overcome with the thought that even staring at a blank wall would feel good. Of course, I don’t just stare at a blank wall; I sometimes play games (which could be described as low-quality, not very enriching), and sometimes I consume content on social media that is also not very useful. It’s not that I shouldn’t have these times at all; we need to clear our heads, but the frequency and wastefulness of these times make me feel much worse afterward.
During my childhood, around the ages of 14–15, I came up with a motto against these wasted and procrastinated times: “Time will pass whether I do something or not.” I understood at that age that what really matters is how I spend this time. Although I can’t consistently apply this to my life, I try to motivate myself with it whenever it comes to mind. This motivation, which I used to use for studying, is now my savior for self-improvement, getting things done, and avoiding procrastination. Often, simple thoughts like this are enough to improve our lives.
“The future starts today, not tomorrow.”
— Pope John Paul II
I won’t make any platitudes; I can assume that for most of us, the biggest challenge is actually taking action. But I can’t deny that all doors open with action. You can provide the motivation to act by starting with the sentence, “Time passes anyway.” Many articles and writings have a common theme: taking action.
Again, most of us give up on taking action by saying things like, “I don’t feel like it,” “I’ll do it later,” “I have no motivation,” before performing an action. However, when we take action, the pleasure of taking action and the feeling of completing something emerge, and we say, “I’m glad I did it.” One of the most valid examples is exercising. Most of us procrastinate or give up entirely before making exercise a habit. In the scenario where we don’t give up, we cultivate the feeling of “I’m glad I came” and the confidence to go to the gym after every workout. So, again, we rediscover the benefit of taking action after doing it. Knowing that this feeling will arise beforehand may not motivate us much.
The issue comes down to taking action, leaving the comfort zone, and the necessity of starting first to do something. Here, that motivation can be time itself. To take action, I can spend this time doing something I want to do, or I can spend it consuming useless videos or content. What triggers this action can be the emphasis on the flow of time in the sentence, “Time passes whether I do something or not.”
“Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.”
— William Penn
I can’t always apply this management either. However, this thought has always been a driving force in some of my difficult times. During this period when I took a break from writing, the biggest reason that triggered me again and led to this article was knowing that time would pass whether I wrote this article or spent time on Twitter and YouTube, and taking action with this thought. Now, looking back, I will find myself with an article that may be useful to a few people, perhaps providing a perspective, and feeling much better.
