Freedom--It's Gaining on Me!

I never really got around to reading Erich Fromm's 1941 classic Escape from Freedom--which was interestingly published in England under the title Fear of Freedom.  But I do own the book, and I have read several synopses, so that should count for. . .not so much, probably.  


In any case, I find his premise compelling.  Powell's Books sums it up this way:

If humanity cannot live with the dangers and responsibilities inherent in freedom, it will probably turn to authoritarianism. 

Fromm, according to people who have read the book, wrote of the anxiety and emptiness many of us experience in the absence of imposed controls.  Been there, felt that.   And he distinguished between "freedom from" (bad) and "freedom to" (good), which are, in essence, the horns of the dilemma I have been straddling for a good chunk of my adult life.


For many reasons, some profound and most serendipitous, I have existed largely outside the formal labor market for most of my "working" life.  This is not to say that I haven't worked, and even held jobs from time to time.  But in and out of formal paid employment, I have "enjoyed" a great deal of freedom.  I have had jobs that involved setting my own schedule, determining my own assignments, and traveling over fairly large geographic areas.  Jobs with night and weekend hours which were "comped" into hours off.   And this explains why I was reading Alan Lakein's How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life all those years ago.


The latitude to decide what I'm going to do, and when I'm going to do it, has been a benediction and a scourge.  Rita Emmett, in The Procrastinator's Handbook, writes of the dangers of drift, the subject of Gretchen Rubin's Happiness Project video this week, and particularly troublesome for those of us in relatively unstructured work situations.  Researchers tell us that our overtaxed brains are buckling under the weight of too many choices and "decision fatigue." Pursued by freedom, I am tempted, as Erich Fromm warned, to flee into the waiting arms of authoritarianism. Maybe I should "get a job." Or maybe I should approach my life like a job. Create routine. Generate lists. Boss myself around.


Of course, Erich Fromm would have me brave the storms of cowardice.  Turn and face the opportunities in my freedom.  Use that "freedom to" connect with the world I find myself in, and join my creative effort to the project of improvement.  Theoretically, this way of experiencing freedom would assuage my anxiety, replace the emptiness with purpose, and avoid the need for arbitrary structure.  


At the end of all this reflecting, I am left with my choices.  I still have to figure out what to do today, and where to begin.  (My dog just volunteered to take this decision from me.  He knows what I should do first.)

My Top 5 Stupid Procrastinator Tricks

Ollie curled up with his favorite book

This day is starting much too early, with far too little time to write an insightful, thought-provoking blog.  So I am employing a popular blogger tool--the LIST--to expedite things.


I am seldom up late enough these days to watch David Letterman.  I don't know if he's still featuring "Stupid Pet Tricks," or what the concept entails, really.  But I do like the phrase, which has become common place.  In adapting it to title this post, I am invoking a playful spirit of not taking ourselves and our procrastinating too seriously.  But the "tricks" I include here are real methods used to get something done; games we play, not for entertainment, but to maneuver ourselves into getting started, keeping going, and finishing up.


Top 5 Stupid Procrastinator Tricks (not in any particular order)


1.  The "Swiss Cheese" approach.

I first encountered this strategy in Alan Lakein's 1974 classic, How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life.  Lakein advises its use when a task or project seems too big and overwhelming to begin.  The idea is to think of putting small holes in that giant block of cheese, one at a time, until it is completed.  Can't face the hurricane aftermath in your kitchen?  Just wash the plates.  Then later, the cups.  And so forth, for about a week or two, during which you bar your housemates from the premises, and (not exactly presto, but eventually change-o) you're done!  (So you can start again.)

2.  Mary's own "5 things" game.

I've been playing this game with myself and my children for ages.  It has as many variations as it needs to have.  In the version most often employed, we assign ourselves to pick up 5 things in a disordered room and then reward ourselves with something pleasurable, or restful, or just plain lazy, for a limited time.  Then we pick up another 5 things, followed by more rewarding.  Repeat as necessary.  This is similar to Lakein's swiss cheese method, but with looser rules.  The 5 things don't need to be related, or part of any larger, more meaningful undertaking.  Some days it's enough to ask of ourselves that we just get moving. 

3.  Timer magic.

Also useful with kids.  And also learned from Lakein, who suggests we set a timer for a short interval, such as 15 minutes, and force ourselves to tackle a dreaded assignment until the timer goes off.  Theoretically, we are supposed to find ourselves engaged in the task, and our anticipatory anxiety passed, by the time we hear that ding, so that we just keep going.  But we retain the option to quit at that point.  I've done both when I've used this technique.  I have almost never seen my children continue past the timer's release.

4.  "I don't want to do it.  I'm not going to do it.  They can't make me do it.  But if I were going to do it. . ."

This method requires a bit of a split personality.  On the one hand, we must inhabit the persona of a tantruming and highly gullible child.  On the other, we become a puppet master, manipulating the strings that make the ruse work.  Fortunately, on a good day, I have personalities to spare, and this has worked for me.  Getting into the tantrum releases some negative energy.  The resulting relative calm allows a more rational voice to be heard, the one that completes the "But if I were going to do it. . ." sentence.

5.  Costuming.

This trick is theatrical.  Here we use wardrobe and props to "set the stage."  "If I were a writer, I would sit with my laptop by this window, dressed as an intellectual at work, wearing glasses, and holding a steaming cup of coffee."  Most days, it's enough to get me started.  And because I like writing at least as much as I sometimes dread starting, I generally keep at it.  

And that, after all, is probably the most important trick--directing ourselves to do something we love to do.