We all have that one word we keep using. Tomorrow. At least for me, it is. Tomorrow we will start dieting. Tomorrow we will wake up earlier. Tomorrow we will finally finish that project. Tomorrow we will start saving money. Tomorrow we will finally meet up with our friends after saying, "Let's meet soon," for the past six months.
Somehow, everything important always gets pushed to tomorrow. It is like we are living in an endless cycle of tomorrows. Sometimes I wonder if Tomorrow were a real person, it would probably be swearing at us by now.
“Seriously? Again?”. Sorry, Tomorrow. You are overloaded with all the never-ending excuses. At this point, you are probably more stressed than the rest of us. Maybe that is why tomorrow always feels so hopeful. Because deep down, many of us believe life will somehow feel better later. Later, when we finally graduate. Later, when we start earning more money. Later, when life becomes more stable. Later, when we are happier, more successful, or finally have everything figured out. Or maybe later, when our bank account finally stops giving us mini heart attacks every month.
Without even realising it, we spend so much of our lives waiting for a future version of happiness that we forget life is already happening while we are busy waiting. The funny thing is, every time tomorrow arrives, it quietly becomes today. And somehow, before today even ends, we are already making plans for another tomorrow.
When we were younger, many of us imagined adulthood would feel different. We thought one day we would wake up feeling confident, emotionally stable, and completely sure about where life was heading. But honestly? Most of the time, adulthood just feels like trying to survive one week at a time while quietly hoping everything will eventually make sense. I used to think adults had everything figured out. Now I realise most of us are just trying our best while pretending we know what we are doing. Somewhere along the way, we become obsessed with “one day.” One day we will travel more. One day, we will finally enjoy life. One day we will finally feel okay.
Meanwhile, today is watching us scroll through another video called "How to Stop Procrastinating" instead of actually stopping procrastination. Life does not pause while we wait for that version of ourselves. The scary part is how easily we postpone happiness without even noticing it. We become so busy chasing the next milestone that we forget to notice what is already here. A peaceful evening after work. A random laugh with someone. A quiet drive home. A favourite meal after a tiring day. And for me, my favourite part of the day is just being still in the evening after work, thinking but not thinking.
Those little moments probably matter more than we realise. Maybe that is something adulthood slowly teaches us. Life is not always made up of big milestones. Most of it is found in the ordinary days between them. Working. Eating. Resting. Shitting. Healing. sleeping, and trying again.
And maybe that does not mean life is empty. Maybe that is life. But here is something I keep asking myself. Why do we keep doing this? Why do we keep leaving our dreams, our plans, and sometimes even our happiness for tomorrow? Is it really because we are lazy? Part of me has to admit that, yes, I am a bit lazy. Another part is just pretending to be lazy. Lazy to think. Lazy to make decisions. Lazy to deal with complicated emotions. Mid-life crisis, I guess, or maybe I am just tired. Sometimes it is just easier to say, “Tomorrow.”
But then I came across something that made me question that. Interestingly, psychologists suggest that procrastination is not always a time management problem. According to researchers Fuschia Sirois and Timothy Pychyl, procrastination is often connected to emotion regulation. We may postpone a task not because we cannot manage our time, but because we are trying to avoid uncomfortable emotions such as fear, anxiety, self-doubt, or the possibility of failure. When I came across that explanation, emotional damage, weyh. It was literally describing me. Before I had even taken the first step, my brain had already imagined every possible way things could go wrong. As people say, I was already shitting myself before anything had even happened. The funny thing is, none of it had happened yet. They were all just scenarios I had created in my own head. Meanwhile, reality was probably sitting there wondering why I had already written five different disaster movies before taking even one small step.
But many of us may be doing the same thing. Maybe we are not really waiting for tomorrow. Maybe we are waiting to feel ready. Ready to be more confident, to know exactly what we are doing, to stop caring about what other people think, and to finally believe in ourselves. We spend so much time waiting to become the people we think we need to be, confident enough, brave enough, successful enough and, finally, ready enough.
But perhaps life has never asked us to become any of those things first. Perhaps it has only been asking us to begin. Not tomorrow. Today. Sorry, Tomorrow. We have been giving you way too much work. Maybe it is finally Today’s turn. After all, today is the only day we have ever really had.
Reference:
Sirois, F. M., & Pychyl, T. A. (2013). Procrastination and the Priority of Short-Term Mood Regulation: Consequences for Future Self. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 7(2), 115–127.
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