“Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.”
– Pablo Picasso
Oh, procrastination – the cause of our ceaseless struggle with efficiency and self-control.
Aren’t we all victims of it? Why; we have our time stolen from us over and over again, and when we finally get down to trying to be productive, a strange little bewitching whisper comes surrounding us, drawing us closer and closer to the TV or the laptop or, in most cases, the refrigerator.
During holidays and term breaks, the unexpected, unbridled freedom was an extreme calamity. I consciously and indubitably knew that there were essays to write, proposals to draft and homework to be completed, and yet, you guessed it, I did nothing. But can you blame me? In a society where so much emphasis is put on education that it sometimes drives some students to suicide, the privilege of time isn’t something we get to enjoy everyday. When we finally are able to bask in its glory, much of it will be spent catching up on sleep or doing the things we want to do. Of course it isn’t wasted time, but while we are enjoying ourselves, I think we can all agree that this is where procrastination comes into play.
I am certain that we can all admit that this is almost exactly how our days look like when we have the privilege of time. Well, at least I can; and tomorrow isn’t helping much either.
Yes, tomorrow.
Then, it strikes me.
When it finally registers in my mind that there is work to be done and by the time I actually sit down and begin my nth attempt at being productive, I wake up to a dark reality and realize that, in fact, procrastination had already stolen all of my time; and even then I’d end up flat on my bed watching YouTube videos and scrolling through Instagram and Twitter, refreshing the page at literally every second.
I’m not really sure what I’m driving at in this post. I mean, I don’t intend to give advice on how to stop procrastinating because I don’t know how (frankly, I think it’s impossible), nor do I intend to decipher why we give in to the thief of time with its baneful lies because I don’t know why. I guess what I’m trying to do here is admit that I, too, am a victim of procrastination, that I’ve been playing this waiting game for long enough.
Well, they say that the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. I guess everything has to start somewhere, right?
originally published: 19 Jun 2014
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