Tim Urban’s Ted Talk on procrastination made me laugh, but it also made me think. The laughing felt good, but the thinking changed me.
Though the entire fourteen minutes of his talk were a feast for my thoughts, the change in my heart began with the image of a 90 year lifespan condensed into one tiny graph.
I studied that 90 year lifespan, each box representing a week, and felt awestruck–especially with half of my boxes filled in and past–at how fleeting my time here actually is.
And now, armed with this visualization of my tiny graph life, I’m conscious of how I spend my moments. I feel alive. Alive with the desire to fill each remaining box with a gold star of progress.
A list of goals–both big and small, long term and short–now aids me in deciding how to live out each day, each precious box.
Even in my “downtime” I consult the list, careful to choose an activity that will lead to a graph beaming brightly with stars.
(Yesterday I worked on a project I’ve forever talked about but have never gotten around to starting. Hooray for awareness. Hooray for gold stars.)
“Something that worked for me was imagining that where I wanted to be–[my life goals]–was a mountain. A distant mountain. And I knew that as long as I kept walking towards the mountain I would be all right. And when I truly was not sure what to do, I could stop, and think about whether it was taking me towards or away from the mountain.” ~Neil Gaiman