“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” - Asian Proverb

I have a temptation to be less likely to do something the longer it has been since it should have been done. This is probably true of most who deal with putting things off: like with an addiction, like with alcohol: you may be able to resist it for years, but a small drink makes it far more likely to take another drink, and a larger drink, and so on, even though with each drink it becomes that much more important not to take another drink.

So with putting something off which should not be - it is easiest to resist the temptation, and do it immediately, right when it becomes necessary to do. But once it is put off a little, it is harder to do it, though it becomes more important to do it.

The difference from alcohol is that alcohol is relatively simple: you never do it: "look not upon" it, as Solomon says. However, whenever you do anything, you are putting off doing, or never doing, everything else you could be doing. You can only do one thing at a time, so only one thing gets done right away, and the rest is put off for some amount of time.

And it also isn't as simple as "do the most important things until they are done" either: there is an infinite number of things that are more important than eating, but you still need to eat, neither is it wrong to take the time to have a really good meal. There are various reasons, more specific than bare importance, that determine which things are done first or given more time.

One thing is certain - whatever you do must be done deliberately, with self-control and prudence (which once again always rules out alcohol, of course).

#sabbathposts 2023/09/02