If not now, then when

The Amusements of Seasonal Advice

The last two weeks of any December are full of Seasonal Advice.

Start of December is more about how to sum up and analyse the year thus gone for clues as to where it went right / wrong / a bit wobbly for the odd 8 (days /  months / apply as suits).

Second Christmas Day is over it’ll go into the how to formulate New Year’s Resolutions that are do’able, keep’able, and won’t (probably) half kill you in the attempt or send you into weary despair as they unravel about February while seeming to dance a merry jig of ‘told you so’.

Safe to say December is full of advice on everything from how to survive the season to how to live a better life for ever and ever afterwards. It’s kind of impossible not to read at least a bit of it as it appears just within in the corner of your eye.

Applying Artifical Constructs to Reality

Of course a reasonable person might well point out that the difference between 31 December one year and 1 January the next is completely artificial, modern, made-up, a social norm we all collude in applying to ourselves to keep us all in synch with one another.

Plus new habits formed on the darkest days of the year in the middle of winter are utterly ‘bound’ to be troublefree and easy (ahem – not).

If not now, then when

However, that said, one thing I caught somewhere out oh the corner of my eye (could be a newspaper, or online variant, or a blog, no idea) basically just said -

“if not now, when would you do it”

Which I liked enough to put it on here. Because I’ve always thought that’s true.

The Horrors of 'Sometime becomes Never'

Because ‘sometime, never’ is very easy to fall into otherwise, and it lasts a very long time.

It’s quicker to do things than it is to not do them. Not doing is endless, runs mercilessly into the dim and distant future beshadowing it, becomes hugely wearisome. 

It's kinder to ourselves to just say 'am I seriously intending doing this or not, if I am what am I doing about it'.

Doing at least is defined, has progression, will reach an end-point, can  move on from.