Stop Wandering about! for neither wilt thou read thy own memoirs, nor the acts of the ancient Romans and Hellenes, and the selections from books which thou was reserving for thy old age. Hasten then to thy purpose which thou hast before thee, and, throwing away idle hopes, come to thy own aid, if thou carest at all for thyself, while it is in thy power.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
Today’s quote comes from The Daily Stoic, and I think it is an excellent selection given it is the last day of the year. Marcus tells us to stop wandering aimlessly and get down to business. So many of us, myself included, spend inordinate amounts of time “preparing” to do something. “I’ll start writing, but first I have to organize my workspace,” “I’ll order these book off of Amazon, then I will start this year’s reading list,” “I’ll go online and search for workouts, then come January 1, I am in the gym!”
Here’s the thing: Forget organizing your space. Have you your laptop? Get to it… you can organize later, right now your PURPOSE should be writing. Forget the new shiny book on Amazon; you have 60 books unread on your shelf and another 200 on your Kindle. Start with those, and then buy more. And by all means get yourself a good workout routine, but forget waiting until Jan 1, get there today.
I don’t say things as an admonishment to the reader. Far from it. All three examples were chosen from my own life and, if I am being frank, those first two are disgustingly accurate for me even now. I need to stop spending so much time setting up, getting ready, and simply do the work.
That is not to say the preparation is pointless. I am not talking about preparation here. Preparation, practice, training, that is all “the work.” Thos are the things that we should be doing. I am talking about those little things, those absurd excuses, those small obstacles that stand in our way and make us say “I can’t get to work until I have this taken care of.” There will always be another thing to do before you can get to work. So just get started. Now.
The Stoic Journal’s prompt for the day asks “What am I doing to turn these words into works?” I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’m off to the gym. It is December 31, so I have one day left until the “New Years Resolution” crowd comes in. That is unless there are a few more Stoics out there…