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Yesterday You Said Tomorrow
“Yesterday you said tomorrow ”, I came across this picture a few months ago when I was browsing the internet. It’s simply an ad slogan from Nike, but it has definitely become the quote that has the most impact on me thus far.
This quote can be interpreted as “do not procrastinate”, or “finish your work today, do not leave it to tomorrow”, but to me, these interpretations aren’t as powerful as just saying “yesterday you said tomorrow”. Why? By saying “yesterday you said tomorrow”, you’ve made some sort of promise to yourself that you’d do something today, promises to your own self are so important that not completing them feels like a betrayal.
The number of times I promised myself that I would do something tomorrow is immeasurable. It seems like I’ve always put off the work that I do not want to do at the moment, and say “It’s okay, I’d finish it by tomorrow”. But the problem is… there is no such thing as tomorrow.
Sure, tomorrow exists as a future point in time, but when we say, we'll do something starting tomorrow, we aren't really saying that a "future point in time" presents a more favorable condition for us to make things happen. What we're really saying is "I'm not willing to do this now so I'll make myself feel better by telling myself that I'll do it in the 'future' ”.
But how much can you trust the “future” version of you? If you’re not doing the work today, do you think the “future you” is willing to do it “tomorrow”? When is this “tomorrow” that you are thinking of? Is it 24 hours apart from now, or is it just a placeholder for a point in time in the far future?
That's when I realized that I too was entrusting the fate of my happiness to "future me”. Here's the worst part, deep inside, I know that future me isn't going to do it either. Why? Because I'm pretty much the same person now and tomorrow, 24 hours is not going to turn me into a different person. If I'm not willing to take even the smallest step forward towards creating what I want now, future me isn't going to come in and save the day tomorrow.
So I’ve taken small steps to try to make things happen. I was working in Vancouver for my last co-op term, the great thing about being on a work term was that, I got all the time to do what I want after work. So, I spent the month of May this year getting into the habit of reading books, I started going to the gym more regularly at the beginning of June, and finally took the initiative to start my own side projects in July. This was how I spent each of my day in the past months:
Of course, breakfast, lunch and dinner were squeezed sometime in between.
It felt nice, real nice, that I had control over myself, doing the things that were beneficial to my growing. I was finally doing the things that I planned months and months ago, keeping up with the schedule was not an easy thing to do, but it gradually became a habit to do all of the above everyday, without having to push myself to do them!
Taking an action is hard, especially if the new action is completely different from what we've done in the past. Understanding that future me is pretty much useless unless I do something today, try to take immediate action whenever you're by an intention! Sometimes the action is just doing a Google search and gaining information from peers, other times, it's putting something down on a to-do list.
I now no longer trust the future me. This “future me” is a person I trust to take action whenever I say that I'll do something tomorrow. But the problem is that, "future me" seems to always let me down. So from now own, I can only trust me, the present me. And this, this moment, is the only time I have, to do what I say I'll do.
I can’t say I now have become a better person, or my skills have improved a lot. But I believe that, if I could just move one step (even a tiny step) forward everyday, I will eventually reach my goals.
Take an action today, keep moving, because “tomorrow” will never come.