Life Won't Wait Forever. Neither Should You.

There's something you're not doing that you probably should be. If you've tried all the tips and tricks, and you're still Not Doing the Thing, maybe it's time to take deeper dive into your psyche.

There’s something you’re not doing right now, isn’t there?

No, I’m not psychic, that’s one of the most annoying misconceptions about therapists. The number of times I’ve had someone say to me at a party “OMG DoN’t ReAd mY MiND” ... and always by people whose minds, if “read”, would make The Very Hungry Caterpillar look like Lacan’s Seminar XI.

I’m not psychic, but I’m also not wrong. There’s something you’re not doing right now. Life’s calling, and you’re letting it go to voicemail.

It’s not a nice feeling, and I know it well. So today, I’m going to do you a solid and teach you something I wish someone had taught me when I was 21 and thought I knew anything about everything, but actually knew shit about fuck. Because perhaps, just perhaps, you were made for more than doing the old flick-scroll finger shuffle through Substack as your brain melts out of your facial orifices, your back fuses to the couch, and your spine starts sliding out of your butthole.

I’m going to teach you how to pull the trigger on the thing you’re avoiding.

Note, I said teach. Whether or not you actually crack on with what you know you need to do once you gain the insight this exercise will provide is entirely up to you. By all means, return to arguing over swole vs dadbod, or enjoying lit-coded aristosmut or whatever the Current Substack Thing is.

That’s the wonderful (and terrible) thing about being a human with choices. When you make it to the hour of your dying, you will have spent the years of your living exactly as you always meant to, the only way you ever could have. There’s no such thing as deathbed regrets, you lived according to your wishes and your will. The exam is over, pencils down.

If all you ever did was TikTok and Ubereats and mediocre middle management, that’s what you valued. You wanted that safety and consistency more than you wanted anything different or daring for yourself. No sense in if-onlys.

If only I’d spent less time at work, got my motorcycle licence, forged my own path, finished my novel, punched that bully, quit smoking earlier, learned to scuba dive, started a charity, bought a plane ticket.

Been braver. Told him I love him. Closed my eyes, waiting for the jackpot bell or the killing blow, in complete surrender and terror.

No. You make your choice, and you pay the bill at the end of the night.

It’s liberating, when you think about it. You can’t live your life wrong. A life spent on TikTok and Ubereats isn’t inherently bad, if seeing a lot of cool reels was a good life for you and you didn’t have to be scared or uncomfortable or risk failure or rejection. You live what you value. Maybe you value running out the clock in comfort.

But if you’re still reading, chances are you want to tip the balance. You want to find a way to get on with what you know you’re avoiding, the song your soul is singing in hopes you’ll catch on and start to harmonise. I don’t know what that is right now, I’m not you. Maybe it’s quitting drinking. Maybe it’s starting a business, or contacting a publisher. Hitting ‘Post’ instead of lurking. Adopting a cat. Learning astrophotography. Buying a boat and travelling the world. Getting your PhD.

Whatever it is, there’s a very handy way to try and get a clear picture of why you’re just not doing the thing. It’s a concept I’ve borrowed from Marsha Linehan’s Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT) framework, and I have no idea what it’s usually referred to. I also can’t look it up because I have a terrible habit of lending my books to clients with ADHD and forgetting who’s got what (and of course, they don’t remember either).

Let’s call it the Why Aren’t You Doing It Window. It works on the principle that we don’t do anything (or avoid anything) unless we’re getting something out of it. Filling out each window will give you vital clues into the payoff of your avoidance beyond “I need more dopamine” (because that one’s a given).

The Why Aren’t You Doing It Window

Now, a relevant side meander. The reason you’re not doing the damn thing already might have a lot to do with neurodiversity. If you’re a regular, you’ll know by now that writing about ADHD forms the bulk of my work, and as people that struggle with motivation and procrastination more than most, my fellow ADHDers will probably benefit most from this exercise. But it’s something that anyone openminded can gain something from. I’ve taught it to soulful but slightly psychotic poets, and I’ve taught it to hypernormal accountants in sweater-vests (I’m kidding obviously, only psychopaths wear sweater-vests … and the best part about that joke is that it’s actually not a joke).

Second side meander (I’d definitely die if I went spelunking). While we’re on the topic of neurodiversity, it would be remiss of me not to point out that getting-started struggles in ADHD are sometimes about nothing more complex than being constitutionally low in motivation chemicals. Always check the basics first before you start digging around in your psyche: sleep, nutrition, medication (if you take it) adding novelty, body doubling, external motivation, etc. There’s plenty of ADHD Substackers around with far better advice on this stuff than me (try

Jack

at ADHD Holistically,

Maggie Jon

at How to Get Your SHEET Together, or

Kelly

at The Dopamine Dispatch).

I’m a psychotherapist, my offering involves a window into your deep dark, and why you might feel stuck even if the dopamine’s flowing.

Because it’s rude to ask someone to do a thing you’re not prepared to do yourself, I’m going to offer up something from my own life as an example for how to fill out the windows. I’m sure I’ll regret it later, but I have ADHD. I live in a constant state of acting in haste and repenting at leisure, so let’s get to it.

Why am I not writing a book?

Step 1: List the “Pros” of writing a book

1. I like writing, and do it for free anyway to stop myself going insane. Why not do it for profit and credit?

2. I will have completed a life goal.

3. I’ll get some kudos for it. Not everyone can say they’re a “published author.”

4. Sounds cool at parties. Wait, that’s just number 3 again.

5. Books smell good.

Step 2: List the “Cons” of writing a book

1. Very time consuming. Would mean less time in my practice working with my clients, and probably less time hanging out with the people I love.

2. If I finish it, then I can fail at it.

3. What if nobody wants to publish it?

4. What if it gets published, and nobody buys it?

5. I’m not innately good at anything else. I will have to either accept my own mediocrity, or begin the entire process all over again in hopes of doing better. Maybe I never will. I’ll be like that tragic weirdo with a face like a doorstop in Black Mirror, who just can’t make a good video game no matter how many life do-overs he gets.

6. What if I DO get published, and I become an insufferably boring, condescending asshole?

7. Or worse, what if I become successful to the point I become recognisable? I can’t handle that kind of pressure. I say stupid, poorly thought-out shit all the time, I’d get cancelled faster than the Acolyte.

8. Oh fuck, see? I mentioned Disney Star Wars on the Internet. I’m not cut out for this, man.

9. I’m going to have to try and impress a publisher too. What if they say things like “you need to have one central point, none of this meandering”, and “you can’t be taken seriously as a professional if you use words like ‘butthole’, you have to take it out”, and then I say “take what out of whose butthole?” because I am nervous, and when I’m nervous I have the focusing power of a kaleidoscope full of chicken nuggets, and I have to move to a farm in the middle of nowhere and become an alcoholic and ideally never speak to another human again.

10. Are you even allowed to be a therapist and a published author if you write about buttholes and chicken nuggets? I feel like it might be on a par with being a teacher and having an OnlyFans.

Step 3: List the “Pros” of NOT writing a book

• More time. Like, thousands of hours more.

• No guilt about time spent away from my family and friends.

• More money, because I drink expensive wanky craft beer when I write.

• A better-preserved liver.

• More capacity to take on psych assessments, so more money AND helping more people.

• Wait, now that I think about it, is it even morally OK to do something as self-indulgent as writing a book when I could be picking up more therapy clients? What if that’s the difference between someone living or dying? What if someone dies because they don’t get treatment quickly enough, and that’s on me, but the book helps a lot of people have better lives in small but significant ways? At what point does the existential math balance out?

Step 4: List the “Cons” of NOT writing a book

• I’ll never complete a life goal in the only thing I’ve ever showed some measure of innate ability at.

• I’ll never know if I could have been good enough to make it, or brave enough to bear not being good enough with quiet strength, decorum and grace.

• I’ll have wasted a gift out of total cowardice, and I will have to know that about myself.

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Most people don’t really want self-knowledge, because then they have to do something in response. I can’t remember who said that (I think it might have been Lacan, I never did finish reading Seminar XI). But in any case, they were right.

Once you complete this wee exercise, you’ll have all the information you need to make a thoughtful decision about your next move. If you choose to do the thing, you’ll have some understanding of the cost you will be paying and the benefit you stand to gain. The things you’ll be giving up. The gamble you’re making, and at least some of the cards you hold. You might well decide to make it happen, given the knowledge you’ve gained. That’s the ideal aim of the exercise.

But it’s an equally valid and quietly meaningful choice to decide you’re not willing to pay the cost. I’m not, at least not at the moment, which is why I’m shooting the shit on Substack instead of doing Very Serious Writer Things with the aim of completing a suitably impressive manuscript.

The point isn’t WHAT you choose, the point is THAT you choose. Because the worst part of time blindness isn’t the thing where you’re always five to eight minutes late for everything forever.

It’s the thing where you always think you’re going to have more time to choose, without realising how deferment becomes, eventually, an utterly immutable decision.

Karla Ruiz/Unsplash

Writing for a Cause

All subscription funds raised by Painting with Lightning go towards funding independent research in psychotherapeutic treatment development. My areas of experience and interest include suicide bereavement, sexual trauma, ADHD, addiction, and the use of AI in psychotherapy.

If you would like a paid subscription but can’t afford one, please email me at skyesclera@gmail.com and I’ll grant you access.

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This post was written and edited without the use of AI.