A Question of Dedication I
November 17th, 2000
A Question of Dedication
I recently saw High Fidelity, and though I took from that film several things for whatever reason the over-riding concern I had when the movie was over was to come up with some top-five lists of my own. The first list topic I came up with, on the heels of my decision, was top five things I procrastinate against in favor of work.
What sort of topic is that? Does my concern with my professional life run even deeper than I thought? Impossible. Or is it? What can we take from this? Let’s start with the list itself:
Top Five Things I Put Aside in Favor of Work
- Writing poems
- Writing stories
- Writing friends
- Reading
- Running
The list clearly illuminates the fact that my creative and physical interests are being supplanted by my need to work. But why have I allowed work to impede so much the acts in which I used to completely immerse myself?
After quick consideration, I realize these things as stated are goal-less actions, whereas my work always has clearly defined goals, broken down into measurable instances — in this professional world, everything remains quantifiable. Does this mean if I set concrete goals for these actions that I’ll be able to at least equalize the energy I put into them with the dedication I put into work? Is structure required everywhere? Perhaps. Let’s find out.
While I’m keeping the goals I come up with private, hopefully you’ll see manifestations of their success in these or other pages.
Keep your fingers crossed.