When Mercury Goes into Retrograde: My Challenge with Procrastination

​Today was one of those days when I just didn’t feel like doing anything.  I have projects galore; wonderful, exciting, even glorious projects on my digital desk.  I’ve pulled my memoirs about life among the recently deceased...my career...and another about life growing up in a very red-neck, conservative Detroit suburb and how that affected a very sensitive boy, (me).  Sometimes I feel like I’m being kinda pretentious, but, no, I really do have stories to tell.  And I think there are those who would want to read them and actually get something out of them.

I am also working on doing something more with my photographic creations.  I am finally accepting the idea that I have an eye and what I see should be shared.  Again, that might seem a little presumptuous.  But a healthy ego is a good thing to cultivate they tell me.  Always tempered with a bit of humility and insecurity of course.

And then there is the most recent discovery: this thing about painting.  Another creative avenue I want to explore.  And a potential distraction from the projects already on my aforementioned digital desk.  I know. I know.  Follow your muse.  But what about, finish what you start?

When I started this entry, I asked Google what to do when you just don't feel like doing anything.  The returns pointed me to articles about procrastination and even depression.  Yes, I do procrastinate.  No, I don’t think I’m depressed.  Just a little afraid to mess it up, not do it well...perfectly.  It’s boring (it’s not).  And it’s hard.  But that’s no reason to go into retrograde.  

Okay, retrograde is when a planet, usually the lesser ones like Mercury and Venus, who are closer to the sun appear to be rotating in reverse.  Reverse.  Appear.  That’s the key word: appear.  It only appears.  Sometimes it’s just refueling.  So I made a list, and I checked it twice.  I got my tax documents to the tax guy.  Hard to feel creative with that hanging over your head.  So no more retrogradation.  Time to get moving.  The opposite of retrograde is prograde.  Time to go back into progradation.  

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