Stoicism

You may well have said it yesterday, or overheard someone else saying it, “Oh, I’ll do it in the morning…I’ll do it after I wake up…I’ll get to it later…I just need to do this other thing first.”

It’s one of the oldest, most insidious lies in the world. Yet it’s so common that we don’t even notice it. We don’t even realize that it is a vicious untruth that deprives us and the world of potential, of awareness, of understanding.

As Marcus Aurelius observed 2,000 years ago, it’s the lie that we’ll be good tomorrow. It’s what Seneca said all fools–and all of us are fools–have in common: That we’re getting ready to start.

You won’t get to it tomorrow. You’re deceiving yourself. And even if you somehow weren’t, if you were truly sincere, who is to say you are guaranteed to get a tomorrow?

Procrastination is not just dishonest, it’s arrogant. It’s an old and timeless and terrible vice. You must crush it. Not tomorrow. But today. Now.