The chronic someday syndrome is where dreams go to indefinitely detained.
Someday is just a fancy word for ‘never‘ in a tuxedo, winking at you while it steals your life one postponed dream at a time. If broken promises were currency, our ‘someday‘ collection would make us the Jeff Bezos of disappointment.
Ah, someday. That magical land where all your fitness goals, passion projects, and tough conversations live happily ever after…while you binge another series on Netflix. The greatest love story ever told isn’t Romeo and Juliet—it’s you and your undying passion for the word someday.
The Someday Club is that exclusive organization where the membership fee is paid in unfulfilled dreams and the only activity is kicking cans down increasingly lengthy roads.
The problem with someday is that it’s the most crowded day of the week. Everyone’s got big plans for someday. Calendars around the world have someday completely booked until approximately the heat death of the universe.
If economists could measure the GDP of Someday Land( let’s call it the Someday Economy), it would dwarf the actual economy. Billions of unwritten books, un started businesses, unlearned skills, and unfulfilled dreams—all safely stored in the vault of “I’ll get to it later.”
The psychology of perpetual postponement is what makes someday so seductive. It gives us all the emotional benefits of commitment without any of the sweaty, uncomfortable work of actually doing something. It’s like ordering a treadmill and feeling healthier just because the confirmation email is sitting in your inbox.
Someday is just ‘never‘ wearing a fancy outfit and cologne. Someday is cognitive cocaine. It gives you all the dopamine of achievement without any of the inconvenient sweating or potential failure. Why actually write that novel when thinking about writing it gives you nearly the same neurological satisfaction? It’s like relationship status: “It’s complicated”—except you’re in a toxic relationship with your own ambitions.
My friend—let’s call him “most people I know including myself”—has been talking about starting a podcast since 2018. He’s researched microphones. Created episode outlines. Designed logos. Practiced his radio voice. Even registered domain names. Everything except actually recording a single episode.
Why? Because in the magical land of someday, his podcast is already as successful as Joe Rogan’s without him having to face the soul-crushing reality that his first episodes would sound like a drunk walrus learning to speak English.
The entire scalable industrial complex( read productivity app industry) thrives on our collective delusion that downloading another task management app will finally transform us into the organized, focused achievers we pretend to be on LinkedIn. We don’t want actual productivity; we want the brief high of feeling like we might be productive… someday. Self-help gurus understand this too well—they’ve built billion-dollar empires selling the dream of “someday” without the uncomfortable accountability of “today.”
Assume that the book you have always wanted to write is parked in the expensive parking lot of someday real estate . Till the painful awakening about your “someday” novel, you write this in your journal: “I don’t actually want to write a book. I want to have written a book, preferably without the actual writing part, so I can casually mention it at parties and in my Instagram bio.” That humiliating admission will free up mental real estate that you’d been paying mortgage on for years.
That inspiring quote about ‘following your dreams’ doesn’t work if you schedule all your dreams for the fictional 8th day of the week. Why do we worship at the altar of later? Because “now” feels messy. Inconvenient. Sweaty. Now means facing the terror of a blank page. Now means moving your behind instead of moving your mouth. Now means taking the leap without the comfort of soft landing sponsored by Excel spreadsheets and SWOT analyses. We romanticize someday because it gives us permission to not do the damn thing today. It’s the emotional version of hitting “Snooze” on your life.
Someday is a scam because it never shows up. Because life keeps throwing better parties—urgent bills, performance reviews, in-laws, IPL finals. You name it.You’re not lazy. You’re just overbooked by BS. And someday is the bouncer who keeps your dreams outside the club.
J.K. Rowling could’ve said, “Someday I’ll write about that boy wizard.”But she chose “Platform 9¾ Today.” Colonel Sanders started KFC at 65. Imagine if he waited till someday when his arthritis would’ve flared up worse than hot wings. Your neighbourhood yoga instructor, the one who quit a corporate job to teach breath work to burnt-out bankers? Yeah, she strangled her someday with a resistance band and went full Namaste on the Now.
You don’t need a sign.You don’t need a guru.You don’t even need motivation. You need a tiny act of courage disguised as an email, a decision, a draft, or a deep breath.
Because the brutal truth is:“Someday is not a day. It’s a decision.”
And Today called. It wants to be useful.
Most of us behave as if we have an infinite number of tomorrows. Truth is our tomorrows are finite. So, get ready to Die Empty!