You're Only Screwing Yourself

Many of you have heard the phrase, “Procrastion is like masturbation – you’re only screwing yourself.”  This is true. I will be the first to raise my hand and say that for the past couple of months I have been procrastinating heavily.  Around the time that I started this blog, I was on an emotional high. I was spewing all things creative. I started a Youtube channel (for natural hair), and I was also writing songs weekly.  My mind was full of ideas.  I fidgeted throughout the day with excitement, eager to get home and put my thoughts into word or video.  Suddenly my motivation dissipated.  I found myself thinking too hard about what I should write in my blog or going through 50 takes of video before settling on one that I thought was suffice to post on Youtube.  I kept making excuses for myself.  Hell, even now as I type this, I’m wondering if I should just press backspace and resume watching television.

What’s ironic is that fear stopped me from writing, although my blog is supposed to be the antithesis of fear.  I started to feel boxed in by the title of my blog as I reasoned that whatever I wrote about should somehow tie into overcoming fear.  Then when I would find a good topic I began to worry that it sounded like something that I’d already written.  As these thoughts bounced back and forth in my mind months continued to pass. Can you believe that when I logged in to write this post I forgot what my password was? It’s been that freakin long.

It’s interesting to me the way that things in life affect one another.  When I stopped writing in my blog, the number of songs that I wrote also declined, and my visits to the gym dwindled down to bench pressing the TV remote.  I learned that maintenance is far more grueling and important than just initiating a task.  I also learned that one’s emotions cannot be an individual’s sole source of motivation because emotions are both fleeting and ever-changing. Can you imagine if a doctor decided to just head home in the middle of open heart surgery because it was difficult and he was no longer certain that medicine was his passion?  Even the things that we are passionate about can sometimes frustrate us. When we push through the frustration we are able to grow closer to and stronger in whatever it is that we are passionate about.

So tonight I am pushing through the frustration by writing this post.  Maybe this post correlates to fear and maybe it doesn’t. I have to start somewhere. I will return to my original goal of writing one post per week, unless hospitalized.  If I write more – awesome. No more procrastination. I’m done screwing myself.