We all know what a “syndrome of life delayed” is, right?
I will
- wear these clothes
- read these books
- use this dinnerware set
- start going to a gym
- write a novel, etc.
when
- I lose weight
- there is time
- on a special occasion
- when I get tenure
- when this trial period ends and my real life begins, etc.
Do you have something that you will use or do when you real life begins? I had this syndrome big time for pretty much ever. Now I have mostly defeated it except in one area: notebooks. I love notebooks and have a whole collection of really beautiful ones. I can’t even say what special moment I’m waiting for in order to start writing in them.
Clarissa's Blog 
Syndrome of Life Delayed
I will “x” when “y”
Our culture programs this behaviour and attitude. You must wait until you are sixteen to learn to drive; wait until you are eighteen to vote, wait until you are twenty one to drink alcohol; wait until you graduate from high school to begin college; wait until you have a Ph. D. to get a university faculty job, etc.
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Thank you Clarissa! This post is simple, yet profound. Life speeds past while we wait for just exactly the right moment to get up and do something. Personally, I am always waiting until I have enough money to do . . . whatever. So many of the actions I want to take simply require the will to act.
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“I love notebooks and have a whole collection of really beautiful ones. I can’t even say what special moment I’m waiting for in order to start writing in them.”
This doesn’t sound like life-delayed. I’d just say you’re not buying them to write in them at all but because you appreciate them for themselves. Not everything has to be utilitarian.
Or to put it another way you’re waiting for the occasion to realize that you just like collecting nice notebooks for their own sake.
And it’s here!
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The problem isn’t deferring goals when the conditions aren’t right to pursue them – being capable of doing that is a useful skill, especially when coupled with an ability to foster the right conditions over time.
Given that you can never really know whether the things you have not yet done will make you happy if you do them, there is a reasonable fear that they won’t, and as an extra downside, you’ll also be one life-ordering point of orientation down.
The actual problem is this fear getting out of control – in order to stop yourself from ever losing the potential of doing the things you want to do (i.e, actually doing them), you begin engaging in muddled thought that allows literally anything aside from actual obstacles to become reasons to wait, wait, wait.
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In my case, there’s “if”, not “when”.
I will wear my slightly larger clothes if I manage to injure myself in a way where I wind up gaining weight while recuperating …
I will use the old typewriter if I have to fill out irritating government forms that require carbon paper …
I will start scribbling paper notes in old notebooks I’ve bought if I can’t manage to keep the amount of thought detritus down to levels I can manage on a tablet …
And so I keep a lot of things that I would optimally not want to keep, but are useful anyway since I have a tendency of having some things that are an “if” become a “starting now”.
Because I fundamentally do not like shopping for less useful, less durable things than the things of old that I’ve bought and stored, I do keep a bit of “if” stuff around on the off chance that I may actually need it.
Think of this as “the life I don’t want, gratefully delayed” instead.
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Most of my actual life is this syndrome. And most of that is the idea that I will start… basically doing anything when I can drag my backside off the internet.*
Sad is it not? But how do you defeat it?
*This is not to say I literally do nothing ever. But I could do a whole lot more- even basic practical things- if I didn’t.
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I love notebooks too, always have more than I will ever fill. Some are intimidatingly beautiful, but the possibility remains that someday you’ll be moved to fill them. Surely there’s nothing wrong with that–not “life delayed” but tools for potential creativity.
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How much of a syndrome of a life delayed is feeling like you don’t deserve things or experiences? Or being outright told you don’t deserve things or experiences?
I immediately thought of this very old post
“You should slobber over anyone who pays attention to you because you are old, fat and don’t make six figures” — literally, my mother.
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Yes, absolutely, that’s precisely how this problem begins. It seems like an insignificant thing because so what if one saves the “good china” for special occasions? But it’s the tip of an iceberg.
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