Last Updated on February 24, 2025

Procrastination and The Problem of Evil

Here are two questions I’ve been obsessed with most of my life:

Why is there evil in the world?
Why do I struggle to get things done?

Weirdly, these two problems are directly related.

And not just for me.

I’ve noticed that amongst my wonderful friends and coaching clients, most of us struggle with both.

And there are deep reasons for this.

Original Sin

As a kid, I was forced to go to church every Sunday.

I can’t say I enjoyed the experience.

But I heard the stuff about being a good person and I thought,

“Yea, I’m totally on board with that.”

In fact, it seemed a little weird that people were praying every week to be relieved of their sins.

I was like, “Wow, what exactly did all these people do this week?”

It must have been really bad!

And why do they keep doing it, week after week?

I felt like I was in a room full of criminals.

But it wasn’t because they were out committing homicide every week.

It’s that they believed there was something deeply wrong with them.

Just by being born, they thought they were evil.

Compulsive Honesty

As an autistic kid, I was already deeply committed to honesty.

Some people are compulsive liars.

I was a compulsive truth-teller.

I was so innocent that I assumed everyone else was basically like me too.

So I was often the butt of jokes from my older sisters or kids at school.

They would tell me something false and I’d just believe they were telling the truth.

Because why would anyone ever lie?

It didn’t make sense to me.

I actually had to deliberately learn to be a little less truthful.

Because people don’t always want to know all the precise details of what happened.

Sometimes they just want a good story.

Purposely Powerless

One story we tell about ourselves is that there’s something fundamentally wrong with us.

That our very nature is bad.

And this story is why you procrastinate.

The story of our inherent badness makes us worry that if we were to be powerful, we’d harm others.

If you believe deep down that you are an evil person, filled with lust and greed and selfishness and violence, then better not become too powerful.

Or you’d be just like the greedy billionaires.

Or the corrupt politicians.

Or the womanizers and abusers.

But is that really who you are deep down?

Isn’t the fact that you are holding back your power and potential so that you don’t hurt anyone a sign that you aren’t like that?

In the Name of Love

The story of our inherent badness makes us feel ashamed of who we are and what we want.

Instead of being fully ourselves and creating the better world we see is possible, we shrink, we collapse, we try to conform to the norm.

And that sucks.

Because the world needs your love, your vision, and your unique gifts.

Ironically, this story of our negative nature means the only people who become powerful and influential are the very ones who don’t deserve it.

Here’s a different story:

You procrastinate because you care.

And that is the very reason why it’s important that you go do the good things that could make a difference, in your life and in the lives of people around you.

Loving Leadership

I read recently that people who want to be leaders ought to ask themselves a question:

“Why do you want to lead?”

So I investigated my motivations for leadership.

The first thing I came up with was this:

“I feel like I won’t get my needs and desires met if someone else leads.”

Boom!

It hit me like a punch to the gut.

Maybe I’m one of those evil people after all.

But then I dug deeper.

“And I don’t want that to happen to anyone else.”

My deepest motivation to lead is to create win-win.

Yes, I want to get what I want.

And I also want that for everyone else too.

If you’re also driven by wanting to help both others and yourself, the world could certainly use your leadership.

Inherent Goodness

And I think most people are like this, actually.

We are social creatures.

Our happiness and the happiness of people around us are deeply intertwined.

We are a deeply altruistic species.

So maybe it’s a better story to think we are basically good instead of basically bad.

What if power and love weren’t opposites?

What if you becoming fully empowered helped others to also become empowered?

Something to contemplate this week.

Take care,

~Duff
(they/them)

P.S. Want to shift paradigms from believing you’re “basically bad” to “basically good”? Join the Joy of Doing Coaching Group. Only $47/month.