A life hack hiding in plain sight.

The upcoming Jewish new year holds a lesson we can all benefit from.

On Rosh Hashana Jewish people eat apple dipped in honey to symbolize a sweet new year… or so we were told. But, apples are not the sweetest. If we wanted to symbolize sweetness alone we could just eat honey by the spoonful. Why the apples then? Is it just a serving suggestion that went multi-generationally viral? Not quite.
The juxtaposition of apple and honey is in fact not only deeply profound, it offers a hack to live by.
Honey can never go bad. Properly stored, honey can last for decades and even centuries. Honey symbolizes eternity.
Apples, on the other hand, begin to oxidize as soon as you cut them. Leave an apple cut and its exposed flesh will quickly turn brown. Apple symbolizes the present moment.
The combination of apples and honey stands to symbolize living in the present moment with an intention towards eternity.

Procrastination nation
I believe that humanity’s most comprehensive theory of procrastination wasn’t published yet, because the world’s foremost procrastination experts haven’t got around to it. They plan to get started any day now. Till they do, below are two (seemingly contradicting) ways to understand procrastination through the above lens.

All apple, no honey. One existing understanding of procrastination is that procrastination is a dysfunctional way to emotionally regulate. Here, instead of people managing emotions, emotions manage people. In the language of the above metaphor, it can be understood as all apples, no honey. People favoring short term ease (apple) who don’t get to execute long term intentions (honey). If the Stanford marshmallow experiment focused on one’s ability to delay gratification, procrastination can be thought of as an ability to not-delay aversion.

All honey, no apple. While procrastination is often thought of as lack of motivation, as the two phenomena present similarly (not approaching a task), it is worth considering that often times one may procrastinate the very things they are most motivated to execute on. Think of someone that is so in love with their idealized vision (honey) that they never get to execute on it (apple). “Well I am not yet recording/ writing/ designing/ creating/ building/ sewing/ composing/ raising funds because I am waiting for the right…” Sounds familiar? Visions never executed waiting for the perfect conditions are a dime a dozen.

To master life, find that sweet honey to apple balance. The above is but one example. This hack can in turn be applied to other areas of life, from dating to parenting, career choices to investments.

As this new lunar year is upon us, may we live in the present moment aligned with and in service of eternity. Peace.