Idleness is perceived in many ways, A Donkey stands between two bales of hay, he is hungry. He dies of hunger trying to make a Decision about which one to eat. Are you a donkey? Or do You make Choices?
Idleness or being lazy,indolent,allowing lethargy to control your activities – or lack of them – is really caused by indecision. Many people have trouble getting started in the Morning and then the day goes to pit. Ever happened to you?
The problem is often that we approach the tasks that we set ourselves from the wrong angle.The donkey was faced with a problem. Which bale of hay is better? We are conditioned to believe that when we are faced with Choice, one choice must be right and the other choice is wrong. So, we tend to spend too much time in the decision making phase.
Similar to the donkey; remember a time, hot summer’s day walking in the city or town with friends. You decide to buy an ice-cream. You and your friend seek out an appropriate ice cream seller and look at all the different types of ice cream on offer. You now have a problem. There are at least thirty different flavours!
” One of the flavours must be the right choice”, whispers your mind. You haven’t got a cat’s clue which flavour you want,right now. Your feelings are something like,” I wish I had a written list,then I’d sit down for ten minutes and study all these flavours”.
The ice cream seller is looking at you in a tired way. You feel under pressure to decide and your mouth is watering. The taste buds in your mouth are crying out for any flavour – so long as it’s cold and creamy!
Originally you and your friend were prompted to buy ice-cream for one reason only – it’s a hot day and ice cream is cold and pleasant on a hot day. The flavour doesn’t matter, so long as it isn’t the latest Cat’s Poop con Leche flavour.
The point is that cold ice cream is what you wanted. But when you were confronted by thirty flavours of the stuff you wanted to buy,you were forced into a difficult situation. You had to make a decision as if it were a quiz and your reputation depended on the Right Choice being made.You thought you had to make a decision about flavour. Really though, you had already decided that you wanted ice cream.
The correct Decision would have been to point at any flavour and ask for it. Your taste buds would be satisfied and you would have felt quite happy with your Decision.
Before I went to bed last night, quite late actually, I wrote down the tasks that I wanted to achieve today. I always do this and its habit and a good habit. It gives me something to focus on when I drink my Morning coffee. By the time I’ve drunk my coffee I want to get on with the first ask. So, the focus causes motivation. It works and you should try it. The decision is made and I don’t have a complex situation deciding which task needs to be done first.
What is important, is that I know that if I complete a task first and then I see that actually I have a very important task to finish before midday, I can change my mind. It’s that simple.
When we have a list of tasks, especially repetitive tasks that need to be done again and again, we can feel a little overwhelmed by the activity. We are already beginning to look at our work as if it were a mountain instead of a day’s work.
At this point we are in danger of allowing our minds to seize up and recoil at the thought of any chance of a start. You see, human beings will react in a primitive way given half a chance.
Men who are faced with the prospect of going shopping with their spouses have been studied. They often show signs of raised heart beat,fear symptoms and finally look for escape route strategies. yes, really.
Shopping involves complex decision making processes that many men seem to deem a waste of energy and time. Hence finding many men in a pub, passing the day with idle talk on Saturday afternoon, while their spouses are out shopping. They have taken the easiest route and simply gone to a comfort zone that required little planning. The action itself is avoiding making decisions about Choices.
Choices help us move forwards in life towards Success.
To make a choice is to make a commitment. So naturally, many people avoid making choices. What do you think happens when people don’t make a Choice? Are they still on route to Success? No, they stop. They accomplish nothing and they get busy doing irrelevant things that have no connection with their goals. Most of their activities involve expending a lot of energy finding strategies to avoid making a choice and going with it.
Making a decision is choosing to start thinking and acting in a new way. It means that we will gently move out of our comfort zones and begin traversing unknown waters. Do we trust our skills enough to take a voyage into the dark waters? Possibly meet monsters, do battle with the demons in our souls and then still have enough courage and energy to steer our vessel through future storms to finally dock at our Chosen destination. Many people say ” No way! Too much risk!”
The Risk behind Making a Decision.
Perception is a powerful mental tool. We all have it. Unfortunately, not many people realize that it isn’t on automatic function. It needs to be used as a tool. To practice focusing on the object or subject in question(decision) will empower the height of perception and therefore the ability to make a decision.
Remember that I mentioned that we have been conditioned to believe that when we choose something, we think that there is only one correct choice? well, the good news is that there are actually many choices and all of them are correct- more or less. It just depends on your point of perception. It depends on what you personally want. Your decision should be based on whether your original belief that led to wanting ice cream was based on thirst or desire to taste a flavour. It is a hot day, I’m thirsty – I’ll take an ice cream, any flavour, I want it to be cold and thirst quenching.That’s all.
After eating the ice cream, we could make a note to return to the ice cream vendor next week and test the different flavours.
We develop ideas about what we want in life and then we are immediately faced with decisions. Often this can be debilitating and confusing. It doesn’t have to be so long as we base our decision making on our own beliefs and not on our conditioning. Conditioning that came from adults telling us to hurry up and make a decision when we were children.
