Idle Hands and Impermanence

Impermanence (anicca) is one of the fundamental characteristic of all things that are perceivable by the mind. Indeed, I have found that to assume something to be permanent is always a fast track to suffering. Be it wanting your beloved pet to live forever, or wanting the happy times to last forever, all of these misunderstandings result in suffering. We are all born with a time limit, and only after accepting this limit can we continue to live the correct way.

Upon further inspection, there is a connection between procrastination and this kind of misunderstanding (that things are permanent). If you think about it, procrastination has an embedded assumption that "tomorrow will be the same as today". There's no rush to finish what must be done, because I can do it tomorrow, and the conditions will be the same tomorrow. This is fundamentally untrue. As an example, I learned this the hard way when I procrastinated on doing a batch of laundry, putting it off day after day. Then, one day, anicca came calling: an emergency struck which required me to travel on short notice, and I had no clothes to bring. I had to rush to do my laundry in order to bring the clothes I need. This is but one of the examples anicca reminds us that it is foolish to assume tomorrow would ever be the same. Like the Christians also say, "idle hands are the devil's workshop". I believe this saying came from a similar understanding as anicca. Impermanence is a fact, so we must do what we can, when we can. Any voice compelling you to delay what must be done is not the voice of reason, because it keeps you further from the understanding of anicca.