This is from John Powell SJ’s book Why am I afraid to tell you who I am?
It struck me because my 21 yo son is a procrastinator and I realize now, how my/our parenting has contributed to it
quote:
It has been said that the greatest mistake a man can make is to be afraid of making mistakes. Indecision and uncertainty are ways of avoiding mistakes and responsibility. If no decision is made nothing can go wrong. The inclination to avoid decisions is sometimes manifested by dragging out as long as possible the ones we actually must make. The only real mistake is not learning from our mistakes.The basic problem here is self esteem and the protection of self-esteem. People who are indecisive fear that they will lose respect if their decision turns out to be wrong. Only little men, someone has said, are never wrong. We learn more from our mistakes than from our successes. But the indecisive person is so focused on his own ego and personal value that he does not see the validity of all these truths. The name of the game is safety and self-protection; the motto: Nothing attempted, nothing lost.Very often, too, indecisiveness results in people who have been programed by multitudinous (and sometimes contradictory) instructions and moralizing, or who have been reproached and embarrassed for past mistakes. Finally, indecisiveness can result in a person’s attempting to support more emotionally burdening problems than he can solve. He usually becomes rattled and can decide none of them
