On Procrastination (拖延)3
Now what is going on here?
This instant gratification monkey does not seen like a guy you want behind the wheel. He lives entirely in the present moment.
He has no memory of the past, no knowledge of the future, and he only cares about 2 things: easy and fun.
Now, in the animal world, that work fine.
If you are a dog, and you spend your whole life doing nothing other than easy and fun things, you're a huge success.
如果你是一条狗，
And to the monkey, humans are just another animal spices. You have to keep well-slept, well-fed and propagating into the next generation, which in tribal times might have worked OK.
But if you haven't noticed, now we are not in tribal times. We are in an advanced civilization, and the monkey does not know what that is.
Which is why we have another guy in our brain, the rational decision maker, who gives us the ability to do things no other animals can do.
We can visualize the future, we can see the big picture.
We can make long-term plans, And he wants to take all of that into account.
And he wants to just have us do whatever make sense to be doing right now.
Now, sometimes it makes sense to be doing things that are easy and fun, like when you are having dinner or going to bed or enjoying well-earned in leisure time.
That's why there is an overlap.
Sometimes they agree.
But other times, it makes much more sense to be doing things that are harder and less pleasant, for the sack of big picture.
And that's when we have a conflict.
And for the procrastinator, that conflict tends to end a certain way every time, leaving him spending a lot of time in this orange zone, an easy and fun place that's entirely out of the make sense circle.
I called the dark playground.
Now, the dark playground is a place that all of your procrastinators out there know very well.
It's where leisure activities happen at times when leisure activities are not supposed to be happening.
The fun you have in the dark playground isn't actually fun, because it's completely unearned, and the air is filled with guilt, dread, anxiety, self-hatred- all of those good procrastinator feelings.
And the question is, in this situation, with the monkey behind the wheel, how does the procrastinator ever get himself over here to this blue zone, a less pleasant place, but where really important things happen?
While, turns out, that the procrastinator has a God angle, someone knows always looking down on him, and watching over him, in his darkest moments, someone called the panic monster.
1. According to Urban, how did procrastinators usually behave?
They often avoid doing work they need to do.
2. According to Urban what does the rational decision maker allow people to do?
Focus on long-term goals and plans.
3. By using terms like " Panic monster" and "instant gratification monkey," Urban is.....humorously framing him ideas to make them easier to understand.
Now, the panic monster is dormant most of the time, but he suddenly wakes up any time a deadline gets too close or there's danger of public embarrassment, a career disaster or some other scary consequence.
And importantly, he's the only thing the monkey is terrified of.
Now, he became very relevant in my life pretty recently, because people of Ted reached out to me about 6 month ago, and invited me to do a ted talk.
Now, of course, I said yes. It's always been a dream of mine to have done a Ted talk in the past.
But in the middle of this excitement, the rational decision maker seemed to have something else on his head.
He was saying, " Are we clear on what we just accepted?"
Do we get wha's going to be now happening one day in the future? we need to sit down and work on this right now.
And the monkey said," Totally agree, but let's just open google earth, and zoom into the bottom of India, like two hundred feet above the ground, and scroll up for two and a half hours till we get to the top of the country, so we can get a better feel for India.
So that's what we did that day.
As 6 months turned into 4 and then 2 and then 1, the people of TED decided to release the speakers.
And I opened up the website, and there was my face staring right back me, and guess who woke up?
So the panic monster starts losing its mind, and a few second later, the whole system in mayhem(慌乱 骚乱).
And the monkey, who remember, he is terrified of the panic monster, boom, he's bump up the tree.
And finally, finally, the rational decision maker can take the wheel, and I can start working on the talk.
1. According to Urban, what does the Panic monster represent?
Anxiety people feel when a deadline approaches.
2. What does Urban talk about how he prepared for his Ted talk?
To highlight how panic is a powerful motivator.
3. To lose one's mind means...to go insane.
听 & 复述
4. I opened up the website, and there was my face staring right back at me.
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