Life’s Triangle Arena, a Critical Thinking Tool, encompasses the “big picture” web of: Nature (at the top of the Triangle); People (e.g. family,friends, enemies on the left angle); Things (e.g. money, possessions on the right angle); and, inside the Triangle, ones Selfhood (subdivided into the Physical Body, Feelings/Emotions, Reason, and Spirit). To assess them in broad categories for applications to ones life: Type I is the “Right” Philosophy of Life (POL) with the “Right” processes—both in the flow of, and developing products out of, Ancient African’s “ME/WE” Harmony. Type II is the “Right” POL but using the “Wrong Processes”. Type III is the “Wrong POL” (any Surreal or Supernatural) but with the “Right” Processes. Type IV is the “Wrong” POL, using the “Wrong” Processes. Type V are Combinations/Miscellaneous. Let us say the word “Procrastination” is in Type III because it did not have a purity of beginning and that caused it to evolve into even greater confusion, conflict, and ambiguity. To elaborate, when ideas of “Procrastinate” (C16, “to belong to tomorrow”) were joined with “Non-compliance” (resistance to yield), they formed broad categories for both Non-compliance and Procrastination classifications. But immediately, both dealt with the negative when that does not always apply. For example, Enslaved African Americans formed certain “Slave Survival” avengements (e.g. a mild form of reciprocity as in an "eyelash for an eye" instead of an "eye for an eye") for definite reasons, including maintaining some sense of “Self” against Humankind’s most evil savages.
Yet, whereas these displayed patterns (e.g. working as slow as possible without inviting being whipped) worked “okay” for the Enslaved, after being culturally transmitted post-slavery to their today's descendants, each became self-defeating. Besides, reasons for their existence during slavery gradually faded away sometime following slavery. Yet, their continuation in many today’s descendents justifies my calling them "Zombie Habits." In short, procrastination (e.g. working slowly, taking a long time in the bathroom, slow talking) is a time-waster–a form of readily correctable Inefficiency and Incompetence. Still, although Procrastination is not from bad, Attitudes as observers might believe, these "Zombie" thought patterns, emotions, expressions, behaviors, habits form false compound Attitudes/Practices. Example: “I’m working as fast as I can" (not true) and thus one wrongly declares: "I’m too busy to do …." So, maintaining Slave Survivals leads to causing the Afflicted to snatch or seize every opportunity to be idle or “Escape” from what needs doing. Hence, socialized, self-defeating, unconscious practices/attitudes become bad habits, like: “I’ll do the Necessary “when I get around to it tomorrow”—and tomorrow never comes; the road to “by and by” leads to the house of Never; and what may be done at any time will be done at no time. Another hypnotic effect saying that justifies not doing “Need-to-dos” is: “I never put off till tomorrow the fun I can have today”. Delay in handling problems always increases their numbers, their hugeness, and their handling difficulties. Soon, easy things become hard; hard things become viewed as “too tough to be done,” and falsely deemed “Impossible” jobs–all spur Procrastination.
On the first rung of the Procrastination Ladder, one believes “talking-about-doing-it” = “having-done-it” and thus the task can be dismissed. Procrastinators on the second rung up are so busy with getting ready to do the job that they take breaks and never get back to the process of producing. Those on the third rung start the task and then get called away “forever” by Attractive Distractions. On top are those who find satisfaction in ensuring they have “a whole lot of useless things to do” and telling everybody: “I’m Too Busy to do the “Need-to-dos.” Any of these, as habits, are parents of various types of needless struggles which create Incompetence, Disorganization, and Failures. Procrastination Reasons include: (1) going along with the crowd; (2) having no idea how to handle it; (3) juggling so many problems as to not see a new problem’s significance; (4) ones top priorities are friend obligations, Flashing Light Gadgets, and/or Social Media; (5) not wanting to disturb oneself with all the hard work required to do what is right or beneficial; (6) “waiting for my ship to come in”—i.e. when there is a lot of time to do it and one is ready–but never gathering the time, energy, and effort to do it now; (7) hoping others will help do the job; or (8) Feeling like a "failure" wipes out Courage. A clue as to what one will do tomorrow can be gained by what one did yesterday. jabaileymd.com; JABLifeSkills; Theievoice.com
Joseph A. Bailey II, MD, FACS
To create, maintain, and enhance HARMONY
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