Delayed Decisions: Balancing Productivity and Pleasure || Acharya Prashant (2023)

Acharya Prashant

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Transcript

00:00Namaskar Acharyaji. So, the question I had was that when you are with your friends, you

00:07tend to do some things that you know are just a waste of time. You still do them to get

00:12temporary enjoyment and miss out on a lot of things. This eventually leads to procrastination

00:20and due to procrastination, there is a lot of pressure that is created on deadlines,

00:26especially for students who are in college. Deadlines are something which trigger us the

00:31most. On the other hand, enjoying the times is also important. So, how do we maintain

00:36a balance between enjoying and managing the deadlines, overall time management?

00:44Managing deadlines in context of what? In context of everything, like in terms we

00:52are in college, we have assignments, there are exams, exam is also a deadline to complete

00:57a particular syllabus. Even at workplaces, we have deadlines to achieve a particular

01:02target. So, you are asking how to adhere to the deadlines while simultaneously enjoying

01:13what you are doing. You see, a deadline is required only when you are in a system, a

01:31corrective system, an educational system. The presence of a deadline simply means that

01:40you are still not mature enough to do things on your own in a timely way. Right? So, the

01:55first thing that you need is acknowledgement that you are still not there in terms of loving

02:07what you are doing. Otherwise, a deadline wouldn't have been needed in the first place.

02:12Or even if the deadline would have been there, it would have been irrelevant. In spite of

02:21its presence, it would have had irrelevance. We are made to work in deadlines precisely

02:32because without deadlines, we won't work. We would simply procrastinate, as you said.

02:46So you have to accept the deadlines and you have to accept it knowing that the deadline

02:53is useful to you. You have to humbly admit that the deadline is not just an external imposition,

03:03it is actually your internal requirement. You need the deadline. It's not somebody else's

03:12whim being foisted on you as a deadline. Right? So, now I know that the deadline is indeed helpful.

03:23Now, I also humbly admit that I'm not yet somebody who can work purely on her internal

03:39inspiration and do something or read something or learn something just on her own. Then instead

03:51of feeling resentful towards the deadline, you actually feel grateful. Thank God the

03:58deadline is there, otherwise I wouldn't have learnt at all. Think of so many things you

04:04would have missed learning had deadlines not been there. Right? Is that not so? In fact,

04:13probably 90-95% of our knowledge comes riding to us on the back of deadlines. Does it not?

04:25So many of our achievements we are so proud of wouldn't have been possible in absence

04:30of deadlines. Translate deadlines into discipline. Right? What does discipline mean? It comes

04:40from the same root as disciple. What does disciple mean? A follower, a student, somebody

04:46who wants to learn. So, deadline is related to discipline. Discipline is related to love

04:53for learning. So, if you have love for learning, you will respect deadlines. And when you will

05:03respect deadlines, then it will become possible to enjoy the deadlines. Then it will not be

05:08an either or situation. Then you will not ask how do I enjoy the work while adhering

05:14to the deadlines. Then adherence to the deadlines itself will become a thing of joy. Why so

05:23joyful? Because I have a deadline to meet. Then you will not say that once the deadline

05:29has been met, then I will go out and party and have some joy. No. I am joyful in the

05:34process of meeting the deadline because I know what the deadline means to me. The deadline

05:40means love to me. So, I am joyful. What am I doing? I have to finish this assignment

05:47off by midnight and I am so joyful. Without the deadline, this thing wouldn't have happened

05:54at all. And respecting the deadline tells me that I am a sincere, authentic individual.

06:07It tells me I have love for learning. It helps me have some self-respect. The more I stick

06:14to the deadlines, the greater is the self-respect I cultivate. And you see, this is how paradoxical

06:24it is. You can stick to deadlines only when you have some humility. And the more you stick

06:30to deadlines, the more you find your self-respect is deepening. Are you getting it? So, enjoy

06:48as you race to meet the deadlines. I didn't get the point. How is it related to our self-respect?

07:00What do you respect yourself for? What do you respect anybody for? What the person is.

07:07If the person is sincere, true, authentic, dedicated to her development, won't you respect

07:13her? Yes. You are that person when you meet the deadlines. So, won't you respect yourself?

07:24Sure, but I have just another follow-up for this. So, basically we have deadlines. So,

07:32deadlines is on other hand imposing work on yourself. Like there is this particular task

07:38A, I could complete it very nicely within one day, one and a half day. But same task,

07:45I have two to three tasks at a time, like at a time I have three tasks. So, if I don't have

07:51any deadlines on my mind, I will do that whole day peacefully. But when I have the deadline there,

07:57I wake up, I wake up with the pressure that I have the task, I have the deadline.

08:02In the pressure of doing all the three tasks, I'm not even able to do one task properly.

08:08Or maybe in the pressure of even one task deadline, I mean deadline just creates pressure

08:15on myself and it's like neither can I sleep and every time I wake up, it's with something

08:21loaded like this happens. Why are the three tasks pending at the same time?

08:31Even if there is one task, like it's just a thing that I have that thing in mind that

08:35when there are deadlines, like I can do a task normally, but when there are deadlines that thing…

08:41If you could do it normally, all on your own,

08:53then don't you think you would have probably already finished it by now? Why would you wait

08:58for the last hour or the last day? Surely nobody puts you on a deadline of one day.

09:06Whenever submission dates are there with respect to assignments, you get what one week,

09:1215 days, sometimes two months. So, why would you be staring at the last day of submission?

09:21Had there really been love, you would have completed it well ahead of time and submitted it already.

09:32This means you need the deadline. This means that it is just an imaginative fancy that

09:41you would complete it even in absence of deadline. You remove the deadline and you find you will do

09:47nothing at all. Or maybe you will do one thing, claiming that one thing is your true love,

09:54whereas the fact is that you need to know five other things as well. Maybe without knowing

10:00those five other things, you cannot even know that one thing you claim to be in love with.

10:08So, I am saying two things here, please. One, when you are really mature and really independent,

10:15then you don't need deadlines at all. Two, if you are not yet that mature,

10:21then deadlines are something you should actually love because deadlines are aiding your journey

10:29towards learning. A day will come when nobody will give you deadlines. A day will come when

10:35you will be all on your own, you know. And when you are all on your own, then usually what do

10:41you do? You give deadlines to yourself. And that's a good thing to do. That's a good thing

10:48to do because human beings are never going to be perfect. There would always remain that lazy ego

10:54within with all its fake excuses, looking for alibis to procrastinate, hide here, do there

11:02something, some mischief, some nonsense with all its absurd arguments. So, you better put paid to

11:10all that by giving yourself a hard deadline. This has to be done by this date, full stop.

11:23Thank you. So, Acharyaji, another question that I wanted to ask you is that,

11:30that it sometimes happens, like it has happened with me, that if a senior or a colleague of mine,

11:39they have like, they have done something that really offended me. But I conveyed it to them

11:46later, not at the present moment. But in the heat of the moment, they said something that I did not

11:51like and I conveyed it to them later. So, out of, like, I don't know, out of guilt or what,

11:57they started making up for it. They started, like, interacting with me more and telling me that,

12:04yeah, like, spending time with me so that I may come back to the same level with them that I was

12:11before, before the incident happened. But I'm not feeling like in, I'm not able to convince myself

12:19to forgive them for that, like to go back to the same level. So, at this point, I don't even want

12:26to disrespect that person. So, what should I exactly do?

12:33You must be having something good to do in your life, no?

12:39Or is that person, that colleague, that senior, is that everything to your life?

12:45So, many people say such wild things to me every day. If I start remembering all that,

12:56then I'm done. There's not even a question of forgiving.

13:02You forgive someone only when you at least remember the hurt.

13:15But then, it's not really possible to go back on the same level, like,

13:19I've known that person before. No, but why do you, why do you want to have

13:23any level with, I do not know which person? Why do you want to have this leveling thing with

13:31this person you are referring to? Go back to my first question.

13:35There must be something worthwhile you have to do in life, right? Why don't you focus on that?

13:41Which year are you in?

13:45Second year.

13:46Second year. So, Kharagpur campus, how many sports are you currently playing?

13:55It's not an allegation, I just want to know.

14:01Two sports.

14:02Two sports, and there are facilities for many more. There must be so many cultures,

14:09so many cultural clubs, right? Dramatics, debating, there would be a film society,

14:19there would probably be a literature club, there would be a dance society probably.

14:31When will you make use of all these opportunities?

14:35If you just keep remembering all these trivial things that happen almost daily with everybody,

14:43when will you rise to make something of your life?

14:57No, you're already in the second year. You've just entered the second year,

15:02or is it about to be completed?

15:05About to be completed.

15:06Oh, half the time already gone.

15:14Now, something will happen in the third year as well, then something else will happen in the

15:19fourth year, and that will be all to your IIT story? How nice does it sound?

15:26What did you do in IIT? I got offended four times.

15:30I got offended four times and I spent four years trying to forget and forgive and whatnot,

15:36you know, that some Bollywood story.

15:42How many hours have you spent in the library?

15:46This is the time to delve into the greatest literature from across the world.

15:53Across the world, till you are in your class 12th, all you read is

16:01your Erodo and Resnik Heliday, those were the books in my time, I don't know what goes now.

16:07So, all you read is these PCM books.

16:10Now is the time to deepen your personality,

16:16to know of all the great things that are there in the world,

16:20and you are squandering this time.

16:23From here, you will probably enter some workplace and they will drive you towards

16:29productivity and you will be working for 10 hours a day and again you will find you don't have

16:34enough time for self-development. After that, probably those usual things concerning marriage

16:44and kids and such things will come and again you will find yourself short of time.

16:49Don't allow this to just pass by.

16:59Hold every moment by the collar and extract the maximum value you can.

17:07And the best way to squander time is by engaging yourself emotionally in some little thing

17:15and continuously thinking about it.

17:23Engaging yourself in some little thing.

17:26These are very precious years, very very precious years.

17:29Learn as much as you can, develop yourself as much as you can,

17:34broaden your personality like the branches of a tree, grow in all possible directions.

17:41All these things, you know, the senior boy, junior girl, leave it to the filmmakers.

18:01I'm sorry, did I say something that hurt? I didn't mean to.

18:10I just want you to make the best use of your time. That's all.

18:21Thank you.

18:40you

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