Procrastinators Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from chronic procrastination.

Feel aimless and powerless

25 July, 2010 - 11:42am - titan

Hi,

 

I want to share few more things about my procrastination and my past. In the past I was an idiot. I used to remain aloof from the practical world, lost in my own world of day dreams where I was the hero. I was James Bond, I was Batman, I was the main character of my favorite show on T.V. and so on......

It was at my first fulltime job, my real experience with the real world. Coming into contact with people 'awakened' me up and I realized that I was far behind where I should have been in my field and at my age.I met a professional consultant of my field and he gave me certain suggestions of how I could brush myself up. But till date those suggestions remain on paper. Everytime I try to work in that direction, it occurs to me that I have lagged behind, that there is a whole new generation out there who are already more capable than me and its too late to do anything now and then I either go and sit before the TV and keep surfing the net pointlessly or drop into my comics.

It's not that there is nothing to do. I have my job. My routine consists of getting up, going to my job, watching TV, surfing net and going to sleep and its been like that for quite some time now. On weekends I do the essential shopping and then its back to the Internet. I am afraid to even think for the future and therefore I never make any future plans. I do make a task list sometimes for routine tasks.

Its not that I have never tried to change this. Sometimes I do get a 'burst' when I try things but this burst lasts a few hours or at most a few days after which I am back to my old ways.

Does anyone here relate to my experience ?

‹ Hi Just Joined Introducing myself ›

Hiding in the Future

Rev - 28 Jul 2010 - 3:08pm

I often daydream about the future, what my life will be like in 5 or 10 years when everything is perfect, to avoid dealing with the present.  This is something I realized reading this thread.  I realize that today is that future that I dreamed about 5-10 years ago, too.

Rev

exactky alike childhood

shikha_1701 - 25 Jul 2010 - 10:34pm

i was addicted to day dreaming  to the extent that i could spend the whole day imagining that i have excelled in my exams and i am being honoured , called on stage, my fav teacher n principal praising me and i am giving thenk you speeches disclosing my secrets of sucess and every one there is adoring me. It was such a pleasing experience that i could go on fantacising about it the whole day.

then i grew up and went to high school and i become more creative in my fantasies. i used to imagine about my dream boy and that how he is loving snd seeking me madly, proposing me. i could go on and on with my stories like m being kidnapped or hurt n my lover would save me and so on.and i used to b lost in my own virtual world, the perfect world of my fantacies where i could achieve everything by just thinking about it.and i ignored the real physical world.

but then i had many harsh experiences of the real world which brought me back on the ground.now i have a real life to take care of which has been spoiled by my deeds.yes i have nothing more than regrets left in my life but at least m back in my life.

my day dreaming has been reduced a lot . but i still abstain from my tasks by procrastinating every moment.my addiction to daydreaming has been lost though i still sometimes get into the trap.but m still addicted to many things tv, internet,many more that can keep me away from my boring boooks.

one thing  that i hv learned that emptiness leads to  day dreaming. engage urself in an interesting activity and u can get rid of it.and the main culprit is procrastination which leads to all these destructive and addictive habits and getting rid off procrastination is a lifetime's misson. i realise that it is an almost invincible monster  bcoz i ve not been able to cure it even after ruining my life. it requires enormous efforts.

i also experience high times for a while which fades away very soon. and m trying to cconvert  these microburts into macro ones by making my tasks oreinteresting n breaking it up into chunks. i think making my books (which i ve been readng 4 past  4 years) interesting is not quite possible but i will keep motivating my self by small beginings as we kno motivation follows action.

best of luck 4 u!keeptrying u will have a bright future.   

 

 

(titan)

vic - 25 Jul 2010 - 7:00pm

 Relate... absolutely! That is why I "show up" here every day. Someone once told me "a sick mind cannot heal a sick mind".

The "only" time my intellect was ever useful was when I realized "if there was any other way, -   I would have found it." and I would have. Like my other issues, I can now say I am a (very slowly) "recovering" procrastinator member of PA, and only as long as I remain in the group.

Big Book pagexxIx and xxx THE DOCTOR'S OPINION:

When I need a mental uplift, I often think of another case brought in by a physician prominent in New York. The patient had made his own diagnosis and deciding his situation hopeless, had hidden in a deserted barn determined to die. He was rescued by a searching party, and, in desperate condition, brought to me. Following his physical rehabilitation, he had a talk with me in which he frankly stated he thought the treatment a waste of effort, unless I could assure him, which no one ever had, that in the future he would have the "will power" to resist the impulse to drink.
His alcoholic problem was so complex and his depression so great, that we felt his only hope would be through what we then called "moral psychology", and we doubted if even that would have any effect.
xxx  

However, he did become "sold" on the ideas contained in this book. He has not had a drink for a great many years. I see him now and then and he is as fine a specimen of manhood as one could wish to meet.
I earnestly advise every alcoholic to read this book through, and though perhaps he came to scoff, he may remain to pray.

William D. Silkworth, M.D.