Tomorrow Is Not A Suitable Day For Doing Things

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For two years I have been trying to do most of my writing tomorrow. This has never worked.

I can’t think of a single time I’ve been able to do my writing any time other than today.

Historically, I’ve avoided doing it today (of all days) because I’m afraid of certain moments that can only happen when I write today. I can be halfway through an article and realize it’s going nowhere. Then it’s either toss it and start again, or try to massage it into something I don’t hate. That’s always a painful moment and I never want it to happen today.

Sometimes it’s an even more painful version of that moment. I might have the thought that not only does the current piece suck, but most of them do. I don’t usually think that but when I do it hurts.

Those moments aren’t scary at all when I know they can’t happen today. When they’re tomorrow’s problem they become remarkably easy to deal with.

So my strategy, most of the time, has been to write tomorrow. Normally I write today only when I have to.

Sometime Saturday morning I stopped wanting to write tomorrow. I only want to write today now. Mentally, it’s a really different place than I’m used to — much more upbeat, much more inspiring — and I landed there after finally facing a heavy, unforgiving fact: I can’t write tomorrow.

It’s a mechanical impossiblity. There is nothing you can do tomorrow. I have never done anything tomorrow and neither have you.

If doing it today might hurt, then either you open yourself to that pain or you decide it’s not something you’re prepared to do at all.

Maybe you don’t write, but I’d bet money there’s something important to you that you’re always trying to do tomorrow. Good luck. Tomorrow is not a suitable day for doing things. 

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