You did know that, right?
Urges aren’t some magical, mythical beast that we must tie ourselves in knots, trying to defeat.
They’re just a manifestation of thought.
Like everything.
Example
I’m reading a book. A ‘work’ book. And it’s telling me some home truths; some things that the Giles Ego Construct 📦 doesn’t really want to hear.
So it does what minds do.
It sneakily offers to relieve this pain it’s creating by some alternative pastime.
“Anything but this!” it says.
There’s a mention in the book of Halley’s Comet, coming around every 75 years. The G.E.C. 📦 remembers Halley’s Comet in the news from when this body was in its youth. And so its solution to reading stuff it really doesn’t want to hear is to pipe up with an urge:
📦🗣️ “Hey! Check how likely it is you’ll be alive, the next time Halley’s Comet comes through!”
And I almost fell for that one.
Before I knew it, the book was closed and I was reaching for my phone.
Really strong urge.
(Of course, the chances of me actually making it to Wikipedia to check on the comet’s arrival year were slim at best. I’d have got distracted by email, or social media or some other nonsense clamouring for my precious attention, on that slab of glass. And thirty minutes later I'd either have abandoned the book, or picked it back up and only then remembered why I put it down in the first place 🤦🏻♂️😩)
📦🗣️ “Yessss, yesssss, my precioussss. Shiny nice easy things that look urgent and aren’t reading stuff I really don’t want to hear.”
But then, phone in hand, thumb poised to swipe, I remembered:
Well.
And I just sat there for a moment. In the urge. Not doing anything, really. Just remembering on some level: Oh. Urges are thought. Isn’t that a curious thing? I wonder if it will pa…
And it had passed.*
I opened the book back up and continued reading.
Principles for the win
We talk Principles here in the Daily Reminders. How sh*t works. For realz.
So it’s the same for any urge that you (or I) might encounter, irrespective of content.
📦🗣️ “Man, I’m stuffed. Now, what’s for pudding? Got a mad hankering for something sweet.”
That hankering? It’s made of thought.
When I remember, more often than not, I’ll let it slide.
The urge might come back (habitual thought patterns can be a bit like that, for as long as we reward them with attention).
And I’ll let it slide again.
Not always, but often.
Because I know I can depend on this Principle:
Urges are thought.
Conquering procrastination
It’s so important to see that urges are just thought.
Because life—especially modern life—is stacked against us with the old urge-distractions (had you noticed)?
This simple, overlooked fact is the root cause of all our procrastination.
It lies upstream of the behaviours labelled as disorders of attention.
All of it perfectly natural. Just a mind, trying to help out, trying to protect us from the pain it’s creating, with its stories, and its imagined futures, and its illusion of control.
You know, writing this, I’m almost back on side with that famously mis-attributed quote:
“Between stimulus and response is our greatest power – the freedom to choose.”
I don’t think we can choose (there’d have to be some separate entity there, ‘driving the bus’ and doing the choosing, for a start), but if we put that Sunday-type topic to one side for a moment, what is clear to see is that in these moments, there’s definitely more than one path that can be taken.
And that, in itself, is very helpful to see.
💟
Giles
*p.s. Never did look. Don’t really care. I reckon someone’ll tell me, nearer the time.
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