Procrastination

pro·cras·ti·na·tion

prəˌkrastəˈnāSHən

noun

1. the action of delaying or postponing something
2. 
   

When starting an online self taught self motivated course, the first thing to do, is to remove the obstacles that prevent you from your path. If however, you have an innate fear or distrust of the new, then the biggest obstacle can be the one you put there yourself.

The art of procrastination has been written about many times, Mark Twain's “Never put off till tomorrow what may be done day after tomorrow just as well" is one of many versions of the old axiom, Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow. however, Thomas Moore was perhaps prescient in regards to modern psychology when he wrote “What is deferred is not avoided.” Since it seems that the fear of failure is quite often greater than the reality of failing, then psychologically speaking, you are not avoiding a failure, but merely deferring the attempt whereby you might fail.

Consider too Schrodinger's cat is neither dead nor alive until you look in the box. By failing to open the box, you are procrastinating.

However, if you look at it another way, Schrodinger's cat is also a paradox - the cat is neither dead nor alive. When we procrastinate we do not fail, but nor do we succeed, so procrastination equals paradox. The laws of paradox are such that unless we are at a quantum level, both solutions of the paradox cannot exist simultaneously. Therefore by procrastinating we are both avoiding failure, but also failing. When we realise this, we can move forward, putting the fear of failure behind us, since we have already failed by procrastinating, and we are still here to tell the tale.

And so... since I have set up my blog, paid my fees, set up my website (which still is not operating on full thrusters, and thus is relegated to my "followup later pile"), I will stop procrastinating and start my course.... tomorrow....