The Garfield disease
Growing up I used to watch Garfield and think man I wish I was a cat. Eat and sleep all day what a dream. Through high school I had similar sentiments, just get through another day and hit the hay.
Along came varsity, here where it got exciting because now I had access to car which meant I could get to the local fast food joint. Fantastic the dream was coming true at last, every day I would leave varsity rush off to mc D’s or somewhere grab some chow, head home and sleep in the afternoon.
Now don’t get me wrong sleep is very important, and I still love it but what a waste.
But it doesn’t stop there does it? Once you have Garfield disease it starts to infect your blood stream and finally your brain until you feel like sitting around and doing nothing is normal.
What I was finding was that my life was becoming a blur, I was very happy with doing nothing, and when I had to do something I found ways of prolonging the inevitable. In other words I procrastinated. Anyone who knows me well knows I was the king of procrastination. I would put things off till the very last second.
Admittedly I achieved very little in six years of trying to do nothing, living the dream I thought. I suppose I achieved exactly what I had set out to do.
When I got my job in sales, I was working for my friend’s dad, who hired me because he knew me, maybe he saw potential. I was quite nervous as I had never been in sales before and I did really know what to do. Whilst chatting to my friend about this he said something which changed my life. He said just do everything you’re told and do it as fast as possible don’t put things off. Now at the time I didn’t really realise the impact of this statement, but looking back...
I started the job where I was thrown into the deep end. These words constantly rang through my mind. As soon as I was told to something I did as promptly as possible. I knew myself if I didn’t do it then and there I would forget, slowly but surely I started to fight Garfield disease and I was winning. Every appointment I made brought me closer to beating it. I started applying the rule in my daily life, when someone asked for something I did it immediately, knowing I had done tasks required of me took pressure off my shoulders, I could relax more, The more relaxed I was the less I felt inclined to sleep.
After a relatively successful run in sales I left and moved to the big city. Here I was forced to be in a desk job. Again following the same rule, but what I found was that I wasn’t getting orders anymore it was up to me. But Garfield disease had almost been beaten out of my system by this stage. I started to plan my days, setting aside various amounts of time to perform tasks. I used a check list, enabling me to ensure my work was complete.
I stopped procrastinating. Admittedly my new worked help as they banned facebook. But this wasn’t a problem anymore I had realised how much time I was wasting, I was a new person a productive person, someone who made a contribution instead of just taking and never giving.
Think about these words. How much time have you wasted today?
Please let me know what you think.
Advice is welcome by adding comment below.
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Too true. Its that stage that everyone needs to go through to realise that the dream of doing nothing ends up being absolutely boring :)
ReplyDeleteWell, well well, Its ironic to read what you said as my friends and i have decided together that this is "The year of no idleness"- what does this mean? you may ask, it means get off your ass and do things- ranging from camping, weekends away, doing courses, cutting out the tv cancer, getting involved in charities and making a difference. wherever that leads you. Life is short- is not the cliche it used to be. Check out Oscar Pistorius- he didnt wait for anyone to whine to- he ran in the olympics on freakin awesomely designed legs. I met a C3 paraplegic (paralysed from neck down) who is running a succussful business using his mouth to run a computor. I am amazed at people. Why are we so lazy? (that includes past me)But i am getting new legs and i'll be damned if i will succumb to garfield disease. Put down that *7%@ lasagne! what is your excuse?
ReplyDeletehey brian, you should read up on occupational therapy philosophy and emancipatory theory:
ReplyDeleteB. The Social Construction of Reality
Social Construction of Reality of Berger and Luckmann is concerned not with any kind of knowledge being discussed in epistemology but with the knowledge of everyday life, as understood by Berger and Luckmann, is the kind of knowledge which enables us to know where we are, what we are doing, who we are, where we are going, how we are going to get there, what time it is, etc. This knowledge constitutes the knowledge of everything that concerns the individual, fellowmen and their relationships within the society. Further, Berger and Luckmann tries to come up with a theory which would explain how a certain body of knowledge comes to be established as “reality”. Henceforth, the object of their analyses is the “reality of everyday life”. This is what makes this theory more sociological than philosophical. Berger and Luckmann specifically claim that “reality” is socially constructed. Each individual is born into a world where others have a strong sense of what the reality of this world is-a sense which they have learned from their parents/teachers/guardians/friends, etc. This collective sense about reality is gradually transmitted to the individual as he maintains an intimate relationship with consociates, contemporaries, predecessors and successors. [Consociates are those whom one has interacted with in face-to-face situations. Contemporaries are those whom merely by hearsay.] Thus, as one enters in to an intimate conversation with others in the society, he starts to inhabit the reality which everybody in the society commonly holds true. In face-to-face situation and conversation, the players use different objects to manifest their subjectivity such as language, signs, and material objects. These objects are utilized by individual player to externalized their thoughts and inner impressions about reality (externalization) and when all these impressions are collected from among all members of the community, society is produced. This process will proceed to Objectivation, where society becomes an objective reality. And finally, the process of Internalization slips in, where the individual absorbs the constructed reality and hence he becomes just a product of the social interaction. These are the basic moments in the process of reality construction, to reiterate: Externalization, Objectivation and Internalization. Thus, both Berger and Luckmann argue that society is shared. This argument leads them to conclude that there are shared definitions of reality (ideologies) as there are established patterns of acting and routines.
I think I may have before actually, all this sounds very familiar.
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