Anti-Procrastination

ועתה ישראל מה ה' א-להיך שואל מעמך 

And NOW what does Hashem ask of you....

אין ועתה אלא תשובה - The word ועתה is תשובה. [Medrash]

When is the best time to do Teshuva, to change, to grow? NOWWWWW!!!!!!

Quotes on procrastination:

“The dread of doing a task uses up more time and energy than doing the task itself.”

“Procrastination is one of the most common and deadliest of diseases and its toll on success and happiness is heavy.”

Wayne Gretzky

“We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. The ‘tide in the affairs of men’ does not remain at the flood; it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is deaf to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residue of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: ‘Too late.’ There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect.”

— Martin Luther King

“Procrastination usually results in sorrowful regret. Today’s duties put off tomorrow give us a double burden to bear; the best way is to do them in their proper time.”

“Indecisiveness and procrastination are the chosen ways of life for most people. They follow the course of least resistance, which is to do nothing. This provides a security blanket of never being wrong, never making mistakes, never being disappointed and never failing. But they will also never succeed.”

“A task left undone remains undone in two places — at the actual location of the task, and inside your head. Incomplete tasks in your head consume the energy of your attention as they gnaw at your conscience.”

“Until you value yourself, you will not value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it.”

“Today’s technology can help us not procrastinate if we use it wisely. We don’t have to surf the Web for hours on irrelevant tasks. Use technology as a tool, not as a means of delay.”

“A dream written down with a date becomes a goal. A goal broken down into steps becomes a plan. A plan backed by action makes your dreams come true.”

“By thinking of procrastination as the result of a human tendency to live too much in the moment, we can devise better strategies for overcoming it. If the problem is weighing present versus future costs and benefits, we need to find a way to either bring future benefits closer to the present or to magnify the costs of delayed action.”

“’One of these days’ is none of these days.”

“If you procrastinate when faced with a big difficult problem… break the problem into parts, and handle one part at a time.”

“Don’t procrastinate. Putting off an unpleasant task until tomorrow simply gives you more time for your imagination to make a mountain out a possible molehill. More time for anxiety to sap your self-confidence. Do it now, brother, do it now.”

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In 1968, as a college student at Cambridge University in Cambridge, England, he decided to visit the United States and meet with the greatest of America’s rabbis.

During his visit, every rabbi he met told him that he had to meet the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menacham M. Schneerson. So he came to 770 Eastern Parkway, the Lubavitch headquarters in New York, approached the first Chassid he met, and said that he was interested in meeting with the Rebbe.

The Chassid burst out in laughter, replying that he could forget about it – thousands of others were also interested in meeting with the Rebbe. But the young Sacks left the Chassid with the telephone number of his aunt in California, where he would be staying, and told him that if he could somehow arrange a meeting he should call and leave a message.

Several weeks later, on a Saturday night, the phone rang in Sacks’ aunt’s house in California, notifying him that the Rebbe was ready to meet with him that Thursday night.

He quickly got on a Greyhound bus and traveled 72 hours across the country to get to New York.

He arrived at 770, and ultimately found himself entering the Rebbe’s office to ask the Rebbe the same philosophical questions he posed to many rabbis. But the Rebbe suddenly switched roles on him – the Rebbe began asking him questions: How many Jewish students are there at Cambridge? How many of them are involved in Jewish life? What is he doing to get other Jewish students to join in Jewish life?

He had not prepared for this. He had come to interview the Rebbe – and to his surprise, the Rebbe turned the tables on him.

So Sacks tried to defend himself, saying, “In the situation in which I currently find myself. ...”

The Rebbe cut him off mid-sentence with a statement that changed his life: “No one finds himself in a specific situation. You got yourself into a certain situation and you can put yourself into another situation.”

What the Rebbe taught him was that he didn’t need to accept the situation as it was, but rather can change it. Sacks added it was at that moment that he arrived at a deep understanding: Every rabbi had tried to turn him into a follower, but the Rebbe, on the other hand, was trying to turn him into become a leader.

Sacks returned to England, concluded his studies at college, went to study in yeshiva in Kfar Chabad, Israel, and then returned to England, where he got married, studied philosophy and received rabbinical ordination.

אם לא עכשיו אימתי!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!