I do—all the time. This is a blog about choosing to be happy, so you’d think I’d be advocating for following those feelings. Hey, just do what you want and let the rest slide!
I make the distinction in my book between “self-indulgent happiness” and “self-disciplined happiness.” (See the sidebar for ordering information; this section is in the first chapter.) The first rarely leads to anything lasting, although there may be a brief flare of enjoyment. So, let’s see—what have I done to waste time since starting to write this post? (Which doesn’t include what I did to waste time before I started this post):
Went ahead and finished up our subscription to The Denver Post. We had decided not to renew this year, but then they kept
making offers, so there it is. Because I hadn’t felt like going ahead and finishing the whole process the first time and just left the tab open, when I went back, entered the credit card info and clicked on “subscribe” I was told that my session had expired. Gyp! Couldn’t they have told me that right away? So I had to re-enter the info.
Went ahead and subscribed to the New York Times for their special intro offer. I had read my limit of free articles for the month and wanted to read an article by Ross Douthat on the whole Milo Yiannopoulos flap. So that process consumed some time, and then I read the article, and at least one other one . . .
Thought about e-mailing the woman who now runs the receptions for the Cherry Creek Chorale. That thought led to my considering the fact that I still don’t have a cupcake stand that works well. Googled “tiered cupcake stand” or some such. Found a few contenders. Consulted with my husband, who was amenable to my getting two fairly expensive but sturdy-looking ones. (I use these all time, and at some point am going to produce a cupcake oeuvre.) Put them in the Amazon shopping cart.
There were probably some other highways and byways along the way, as it were. This is all very meta, isn’t it? You’ll notice that I did accomplish some items (and spent some money). But it’s now almost 4:00. I got home from Bible study and lunch at around 12:30; I don’t remember when I actually started working on this post, but there was a lot of hinking and jinking before that.
I need to be sterner with myself! How about you?