Photo by jelene
Diligence is a highly extolled virtue of the human civilization. In almost every society it is taken seriously, albeit in varying degrees, and being inculcated in the younger generation in the educational systems.
On the other hand, it happens to be an inherent trait of human nature to procrastinate and, no matter what we tell our children to the contrary, we adults often tend to slack off when some superior is not breathing down our neck. So does that mean we humans are characteristically lazy? Psychologists don’t quite agree. As they point out, it is rather being diverted from what should be our high-priority activities due to various mental miscalculations: one of the most prominent among them is our covert perfectionism that makes us flinch when faced with a challenging task or project as we in our heart of hearts fear that we would not be able to do it correctly. To get away from this doubt, we adopt diversionary tactics like busying ourselves with other- less important but easy to accomplish- activities. Needless to say, these other occupations bring little, if any, reward.
Many complex tasks we have to undertake today may look quite daunting when viewed in their whole. The trick is to divide them into several smaller units that, when taken separately, won’t put us off like that. And launching into the first step as soon as possible will generate momentum that will help propel us forward, something that definitely won’t happen as long as we wait on the sidelines.
Then again, there is no point in being perfectionist in avoiding procrastination either. There are things you have to put off in order to get on with other more important stuff. After all, no one today can tackle everything they ideally should do, given the many different duties crying for our attention at the same time. So it is very important to prioritize and pursue the tasks that really matter as otherwise one might run the risk of not seeing the jungle for the trees. Inadvertantly they would once again end up being diverted from their priorities if they attempted to be diligent with everything without separating the grain from the chaff.
Tags: diligence, diversion, perfectionism, procrastination
