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A lot of my life has consisted of extensive dreaming, planning, and fixating. 95% of my day is spent thinking of how amazing it would be to have a review blog, a fashion blog, a youtube channel, a website, a company, a career, a new beginning, new friends, more friends, more plans, beach plans, travel plans, an escape, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Of course, in my mind, I can't have any of those things because they all carry prerequisites: free time not spent studying, an aesthetically pleasing template, a decent camera, a taller tripod, Final Cut Pro, a desktop, more money, a new environment, a different age, a different time, summer break, after my internship, starting in the fall, a new club, a planner, more bucket lists, a good bikini, less flab and weight, my parents' approval, a friend to go with, tomorrow, when I have more time.
Some of these requirements are more necessary than others, for sure, but even when I do manage to jump one "hurdle" and find spare time or convince my parents to gift me that camera, I create other reasons for why I cannot possibly realise these dreams to their fullest potential at this point in time. And so, it is unfathomable to imagine that I could just prematurely start without worrying about delivering a polished result comparable to my expectations. But you know what? I still don't stop thinking about it! I mentally keep saying "Oh if only I had a tripod I could start being a fashion blogger" or "If I didn't have that project due next week I could have definitely spent time coming up with a sound business plan". It's as if I unconsciously create barriers obstructing my path to success because I'm afraid that I might actually fail even if the barriers weren't there and I gave obtaining that success my full attention. I think that's why, in high school, I spent a lot of my time not studying and being proud of my negligence. When I got a 92 or an 89 because I didn't study, I could, and did, make the slightly pretentious claim that "I totally would've gotten 95+ if I studied". Looking back, perhaps, I just didn't want to see myself study for hours and still end up with that 89. I didn't wan't to know that my threshold was only that much, only an 89. Of course, rationally speaking, I most likely would have gotten a higher grade if I did study. Unfortunately, I continued to self-sabotage myself all throughout high school as that absolutely pointless defense mechanism kept kicking in. Why am I bringing this up? Because two weeks ago I decided to fuck it all. I filmed some stuff, threw it together, and clicked that upload button once and for all. I did criticise almost all of it after the fact, but the important thing was that it was a step in the right direction of actually doing versus thinking. Two weeks later, I uploaded my fifth video (embedded above), proud as ever. I'm hoping that this less procrastinatory mentality translates from Youtube to the other areas of my life. I suppose my next goal is to actually reply to people on text/message/email when I see it instead of days later accompanied by excuses. But only time will tell I guess. |