PART I.

  There are at least two types of procrastination when faced with, sometimes too many, possibilities. It makes them feel lost, often leading to procrastination because it is not what they want to do, or they are unsure of what they really want to do. One is a vagabond of possibilities, and the other a vagrant of possibilities. I’ll be sharing a story, an example, of each later on.

  One is a seeker, lost in wandering among endless rooms; the other, a soul, circling rooms they dare not enter for long. There are far too many rooms. There are too many ideas in the world, not that it is a bad thing.

  There are too many forms of entertainment, and it is everywhere. Despite the endless entertainment, why does boredom still exist? Entertainment was supposed to solve this.

  Humans need something to do to not get bored. Cavemen hunted all day, and farmers during the agricultural revolution farmed all day. Now, jobs are no longer enough to solve boredom, which is why entertainment exists.

  However, now even entertainment, in its overabundance, is not enough for boredom. There are simply too many of them to choose from. However, these ‘rooms’ are not just entertainment or ideas.

  There are endless hobbies to choose from.

  Endless jobs. Endless ideas. Endless entertainment. Endless identities. Endless possibilities.

  They’re all nearly infinite.

  There are two types of people, ones who know what they want and like to do, and ones who are still searching for what they want to do. It’s great if one does not need to search; the limitless possibilities do not affect them.

  However, this is not about them. This is about the vagabonds and vagrants of possibilities. Those who do not have a ‘room’ that belongs to them, those who are afraid of staying in a room for too long, and those who enter too many rooms, and belong to none.

  They are wanderers who either open too many doors and thus belong to none, or are too afraid to fully open one door, afraid of it being the wrong one among the endless doors. Some want to fully open one door and only open one door, but they feel regret that there could be a better door. Some think ‘I’ll do it later’ as all they do is dip their toe and move on to something else, to just completely abandon it.

  There are too many things to do, and in return, nothing gets done. Businesses use this choice paralysis as well; they only give a few options, knowing that there are so many products to choose from, customers end up buying less.

  Why is there no simplicity in ideas, hobbies, jobs, identities, entertainment and possibilities for those unsure? Must they continue wandering until they find a room they enjoy, whenever and however long that may take? If that is too unrealistic, then must they settle in a ‘room’ or enter a ‘door’ they do not enjoy just to finally stop wandering?

  There is also another option, to roam and search for possibilities for the sake of roaming and searching. To enjoy being a vagabond for the sake of being a vagabond. However, that is not something everyone could enjoy; most want to fully enter one or a few of the ‘doors’. Roaming for the sake of it will not solve the problem of endless possibilities; they could still suffer from choice paralysis from too many doors and continue procrastinating. They are relentless wanderers of possibilities. I will talk about them another day. This, too, is not about them.

  A well-known archetype of vagabonds of possibilities is a jack of all trades. ‘Jack of all trades master of none, although oftentimes better than master of one’, they too belong to none. They leave everything unfinished. A jack of all trades is a master of procrastination, never completing anything.

  Many readers are also vagrants. There are so many books and ideas to read, and many try to optimize or find the best one, only to end up procrastinating on them all. They never finish even a chapter, and then regret it because they only have so much that they can read.

  Better examples of vagrants are hesitant shoppers. They always try to look for something to buy, almost at checkout, but hesitate too much, afraid it won’t be ‘the right fit’. They are too afraid to commit, afraid that they’ll regret it.

  Vagabonds dwell in many doors, but so many that they cannot afford to commit to any. While vagrants dabble in a few doors but avoid the risks of commitment, either because they are unable to or afraid to.

  However, many do want to or are looking to settle in a ‘room’ or ‘house’, and some are also desperate to. They can only drift among the sea of possibilities, while grasping for straws to breathe.

  Sometimes, vagrants know they have the potential to do better. Yet, they live like they're nobody, never achieving anything. If only they put in the effort. Nevertheless, they choose not to do anything, scared of leaving their comfort.

  Those with potential, and see it, yet choose comfort, procrastinate and make excuses because they fear it’s not their room. They let the opportunities go by and never grasp them. Regret becomes all too common.

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  It’s not always a fear of failure. The main reason for procrastination is not the fear of failure. It is because of possibilities. Failure only hits hard if one has a sense of purpose or drive, but that’s exactly what the lost ones lack, a ‘room’ they belong to. They lack the hunger for something, anything at all.

  Sometimes, vagrants start to expect failure and start humbling themselves as a nobody. They start believing that they’re worthless and start giving up, creating a loop of regret.

  A lost one will barely react to failure, only going like ‘Ah, it’s to be expected, I didn’t try hard anyway’. Even when they have potential and know they could succeed, they won’t care if they fail. They wouldn’t need to care when it’s not the room they’re interested in.

  Talent only means something if it is also in a subject one at least likes. Without some drive or motivation, talent withers. We mainly hear stories of those who succeed because they had some interest in a ‘room’. What about those who had talent but never cultivated it, and where are their stories?

  In every story, the protagonist is expected to have ‘motivation’, ‘drive’, ‘interest’, ‘hunger’ or something to move the plot forward. The protagonist cannot be so passive as to let the plot move by itself. The definition of ‘protagonist’ is someone who moves the plot forward, after all.

  Thus, the protagonist or main character currently has or will have found a room they belong to, and possibilities that belong to them. So, procrastination is never common among them, because the plot and readers demand it. So, where are the stories of the procrastinators, the lost in endless possibilities?

  They, unfortunately, rarely become the protagonist, and usually just become side characters, or as many like to call them, ‘NPCs’. They never achieve something grand, appear to just randomly spawn in, and do nothing much. They’re just background, the bartenders, shopkeepers, etc.

  Side characters rarely have purpose, just like procrastinators. Yet, everyone is expected to have a purpose. To know what they want to do. That purpose makes a better life. Those are demanded.

  Education teaches you a broad range of subjects to help you find your interests, but it’s only the subjects that benefit the schools and companies that need workers. They either choose the wrong subjects or introduce too many potential subjects that students cannot choose from choice paralysis. At the end of high school, students must choose what field they want to further study, as if they must have already found their purpose.

  Yet, not everyone can find purpose. Many are lost in the countless possibilities. Telling vagabonds and vagrants to find a house does not work. One cannot just find a room so simply, which is why they don't have a place in possibilities in the first place.

  Sure, they can uncomfortably settle with opening a door they do not like, but that does not fix procrastination. It only creates more procrastination. It leads one to think they could be doing something else and look for more possibilities, doors they still won’t ever open fully.

  The lost are told to chase after what they hunger, their passion, or else they ‘lose’ at life. That if they remain dedicated or hungry for something, life will get better. There is an issue with ‘losing’, ‘winning’ or a ‘better’ life.

  How do you define a ‘better’ life? It is impossible to measure life as ‘losing’ or ‘winning’. Life isn’t a game. One cannot fail at life. Life is not school. Life cannot get better or worse, as there is no quantitative way to measure life.

  Life is an unknown. One cannot measure the success of life by money; plenty are unhappy with money and happy without money. One cannot measure the success of life by status. One cannot measure life by relationships. One cannot measure the success of life by friends.

  Careers? No. Goals? No. Happiness? No. ‘Better life’ is so vague, it’s too subjective. If one can just define their success in life, it is not really a winning life. Life is not so meagre that one can label their definition of success on it. A ‘successful’ life is different for everyone.

  It is impossible to define life. Life is unknown to science, so it is even more impossible to define how to ‘win’ at such an unknown. The issue is that people say you need to hunger, need to chase your passion to ‘win’ at life, when many can’t even find passion.

  One cannot define success in life, more so, one who does not know what one wants to do. There is no unit of measurement for life. The measurement is different for everyone; it is too vague, it cannot be. Life simply is, no winning or losing.

  If one can give their definition of success in life, they can make it too easy or too hard, and thus would not help at all. One could define their success in life by how long they’ve lived or how many games they’ve won. Another could define their success in life as being number one, when only one person can make it when there are often tens of thousands competing, or bringing about another industrial revolution.

  Finding a balance between challenging and feasible is too thin. The thin line is too small to even attempt to win at life. Winning at life could be too unfulfilling or impossible to achieve. We’re all humans living our first lives, it is to be expected that humans cannot find a measurement that is neither too easy or not too hard.

  A vagabond of possibilities would have too many variables to measure their success in life if they had found a ‘better’ life. A vagrant would make their definition of a successful life too difficult, one where they’d quickly lose.

  Defining one’s success in life may work for some, but it certainly does not for the lost. When they are already lost in endless possibilities, they do not have time to search among the endless definitions of success.

  Just like possibilities, ideas, hobbies, passion, etc, success is nearly endless. The lost will end up procrastinating on it as well. It simply does not work. It is simply too subjective. It is not helpful.

  It is indeed not helpful to me. I, too, am lost in the endless possibilities. I can never find that hunger, a room that I fully belong to. Even with this short story, I procrastinate. I know, how ironic. Hopefully, this door, this room of ‘writing’, is one I stay in.

  So, let me tell you a story of two lost ones. Two people stuck in infinite possibilities. Two without a ‘room’. Two characters, unsung and unspoken of, because they were never able to open a door and win at something.

  A vagabond, one who opens every door, only to leave the previous one behind.

  A vagrant, one who wishes for one door, but too afraid to open any.

  Hopefully, with these two anecdotes, I may ask my question.

  As many have been born with the keys to a room since birth, many others haven’t. For some, they have been given a key fragmented into a thousand sharp pieces, and have been demanded to solve the puzzle. For some others, they have been given a thousand keys, all as interesting as the others, but never fitting the lock.

  If only we had endless time to match the number of possibilities.