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- #131. Catching feelings
#131. Catching feelings
Shem Opolot
July 25, 2025
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LIFE.
Catching feelings.
“Your faith isn’t validated by feelings,” he said.
Day 12,654: Still no cure for procrastination, and I don’t feel good about that.
Every time I live in a new city, it takes a few weeks before the feeling in the pit of my stomach compels me to find a community church and stop being a bad Christian. During that time, my very Catholic older brother nudges me to find a nearby church—Catholic, preferably.
I procrastinate for a while before giving the nearest Catholic Church a chance. Why Catholic? Well, I was raised Catholic, for one, and that level of indoctrination is hard to shake. But also, Catholic mass is predictable, one hour long, and you know the priest won’t try to sell you holy rice as an elixir for all your problems.
I procrastinate finding a church because of some complicated feelings I’m working through, but I respect Catholic consistency—that every Sunday, every Catholic church on the planet celebrates the same mass and teaches the same lesson.
If you were a practicing Catholic who lived in Laos and you were in a long-distance (and very celibate) relationship with your partner in Melbourne, Australia, you could call them after your service like the pious Christians you are and say, “How about that wringer Satan put Job through, right?” And your partner would immediately respond, “I know, right? I can’t believe God let that happen,” followed by, “Is this why we’ve been apart for so long? Is the devil testing us with God’s consent?”
Anyway.
My very Catholic older brother once shared the most profound thing with me when I criticized the Catholic Church. After returning from the weekly fellowship at my newly patronized Pentecostal church, I told him I cried during praise and worship. I told him I felt indescribable things. I told him all I ever felt in Catholic mass were aches in my knees from the constant standing and sitting and ringing in my ears from the hums of the hymns and the clanging of the bells.
My brother listened attentively and said, as part of a longer response:
“Your faith isn’t validated by feelings…”
But I was 16, with hormones coursing through my veins like a freshly dammed river and cute girls at the Pentecostal church, so my feelings were critical for my “faith.”
I procrastinated dealing with the issue of my faith and my feelings—a conflict that would define my life to this day.
Eventually, after many deliberations, I stopped searching for a feeling in church and focused on my actions and the actions of the churches I frequented. I focused on what my actions would build up to. I focused on my desired outcome, and this built more consistency than anything else.
And speaking of actions and outcomes, there’s an entire industry and economy dedicated to “treating” procrastination, but as is common with modern medicine, there’s no hope for a cure. The productivity economy is one of the most successful ventures that doesn’t offer permanent solutions. Mostly because things germane to productivity—or lack thereof—like procrastination, are features, not bugs, of the human psyche.
Taskmasters, spreadsheets (😉), to-do lists, workspaces, journaling prompts, people for hire, accountability partners, etc. We’ve thrown the kitchen sink at the productivity problem, but somehow we haven’t cured it.
We do know that procrastination is rooted in our feelings about the task at hand. Sometimes in fear—when a task’s difficulty terrifies you, you put it off. Or in complacency—when the task is so small that you put it off until later.
The first step in the procrastination cycle is to sort out the feelings you have about the task. To name them: “How do I feel about doing this task? Can I do it easily? Will it be hard? Do I want to do it? Do I have to do it?” Ask yourself everything. Once you confront the feelings, you can plan with your eyes wide open.
The next most important step is to ignore those feelings and focus on the outcome instead.
For example, I’ll never tell you I love working out. I don’t. I’m not one of those people. And I believe those who claim to love it are lying. But I work out consistently because I love the outcomes.
I’d never complete my dissertation proposal if I focused on how exhausting the constant revisions are instead of the fact that I need to be done with school this year.
Your actions validate your faith and your productivity, not your emotions.
THINGS.
A quote.
These two highlights from Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy resurfaced in my Readwise app, and I still marvel at Tolstoy’s ability to deconstruct the human psyche through his characters.
“But I’m married, and believe me, in getting to know thoroughly one’s wife, if one loves her, as someone has said, one gets to know all women better than if one knew thousands of them.”
“Women are the chief stumbling block in a man’s career. It’s hard to love a woman and do anything. There’s only one way of having love conveniently without its being a hindrance—that’s marriage.”
A picture.
I have missed these two so much. I thank God for every second I get to spend with them. Even when they frustrate me and play with my lappppppppptooppppppp.
WORK.
Shameless plug
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FUN.
The Friday Fix playlist
Shem’s picks
✅ Can you spot the wig?
✅ Which crops have the highest chance of surviving in a changing climate?
✅ Not sure how these are picked
✅ Click to relax
✅ Draw your fish and watch it swim
Have a great weekend,
— Shem
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