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Flex Your Emotional Muscle to Overcome Procrastination 53

The psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud uses the metaphor of a
horse and rider to show the endless conflict between impulse and
reason. The horse is the impulse. The rider controls reason.
The horse represents our passions and our impulses to avoid
tension. The horse knows two things: if something doesn’t feel
good, move away; if something feels pleasurable, go for it. The
horse learns new dangers fast. It is a slow learner when it comes
to giving up false fears.
The rider is your higher mental processes. The rider reasons,
makes connections, plans, and regulates actions. The rider can be
a fast learner about maintaining perspective, solving problems,
and anticipating change. When the horse’s instincts depart from
the rider’s awareness of reality, the rider has the ability to restrain
the horse, but the horse has a mind of its own.
The horse can be spontaneous. The rider may also act sponta-
neously, but in different ways. The rider sees humor in incongruity,
which is something that the horse can never do. Neither the rider
nor the horse wants to experience tension, but the rider will recog-
nize when it’s necessary to tolerate tension. The horse may prefer
grazing to creating an insightful competitive analysis. The rider’s
job is to create that analysis and avoid horselike distractions.
The rider has the power of reason. Yet, the rider is not always
realistic. You may unintentionally distort reality because of false
beliefs, such as thinking that inconvenience is terrible. You can
worry about failing. Worry is a form of helplessness in the face of
uncertainties that can scare the horse and spur procrastination.
Emotional and mental processes that trigger procrastination
are not as deeply embedded and invisible as Freud thought. Rather,
they are often at the cusp of consciousness and can be made visible
if you know where to look. Information from this book and other
cognitive behavioral sources can give you a solid template for know-
ing what you are looking for when you think about your thinking.
The horse and rider metaphor is an important emotive
image to help you keep a perspective on the competition between