Early in the morning I debated wether to go to my 7am yoga course. I wish it were because I was lazy, but in reality I had procrastinated the past week on an important task. Sometimes procrastination leads you into wonderful productive detours, but in others it offers a dark side where work just piles up because you are constantly thinking about what you ought to be doing, instead of actually doing it. Mine is the latter case. But it is not bad, it’s simply a backlog which must be addressed this week.
It’s interesting how you can stress yourself out from this avoidance, which in turn causes guilt, this week I found myself with unwanted embarrassing memories emerging seemingly out of nowhere, but as I write this I discover the source.
On the body work side of the equation I’ve been very diligent, but my shoulder was hurting so much I had to go to the physiotherapist on the weekend. She said my entire right shoulder was inflamed and that I should not practice at all this week. I already feel phenomenal and I had reasoned the night before that—if I simply keep mindful about my shoulder, and avoid all pressing exercises where I experience pain, then I should be fine.
But in the morning I felt different: part of the reason why I haven’t been able to tackle this unappealing work is because I’m using my energies before starting work. When I come back from yoga I’ve already depleted my energies for the “big task” and then squander what remains of it beating around the bush.
So I worked on this task all morning and all afternoon. I was not very focused as avoidance makes me prone to seeking distraction on the internet, and the FB+WhatsApp+Instagram downtime provided plenty of that.
But I did finish what I had set myself to do, and perhaps tomorrow I will go to yoga, but I will know for sure in the morning. It is possible to procrastinate on body work in order to perform outer work, but this is playing zero-sum games with yourself, there are better games where intellect and body cooperate to raise the performance of each other.