Professional Procrastinator
As a young person, modern society will tell you that you are lazy. You're a millennial and you've grown up privileged and so you feel like you shouldn't have to work for anything, and that everything should be handed to you. Recently however, I watched a viral video that I'm sure many of you have seen, on just what it is to be a milennial (and if you haven't, here it is below), and it's the video that prompted me to write this blog.
My New Years resolution was to start writing a blog. I said it would be a weekly thing but sure alas, here we are, near the end of February and I'm only doing it now. Professional procrastinator; that is I. So I decided that my first proper blog post would be on just that - procrastination! My boyfriend has been nagging me for about five months to do it now, so already you get the jist of the sort of desperate dawdler I am. Truth is, I'm deathly afraid of being made fun of; people thinking my writing is cringe or simply just not good.
As a kid, I was best at writing all the way through primary school, right up to secondary school. I received the writers' award in P7 (God love 10-year-old me), and even the highest achiever in English Literature at A Level. But something happens us when we leave school and I would like to think everyone agrees. Your inner kid shrinks and daunting responsibilities of adulthood weigh down instead. I was apprehensive about being creative anymore and felt like I needed to be a "Grown-Up". Writing wasn't going to get me anywhere, I needed to be more realistic. My parents always thought teaching would be a safe enough route for me. By no means am I saying being a teacher is easy, but it's a less competitive industry to get into than writing.
Don't get me wrong, I would love to be a teacher! I've even helped my boyfriend teach creative writing classes to adults over the last few months and it's been the height of craic. I've even applied to teaching courses in England but then when it came down to it, i thought "hold on, is this really what I want to do right now?"
Don't get me wrong, if you want to do something so badly and you're just not doing it, that is sheer laziness. But if your heart isn't completely in something, don't just do it because everyone else seems to be, or because you're being told to. I know my friends and family just want the best for me, but for now all I want to do is write, save for the next year, and see where life takes me. I might be a proper teacher; I might be a professional writer. I might be something entirely different!
Numerous studies have shown that excessive use of social media is linked to depression. As the consultant says in the video I first mentioned, getting 'likes' triggers dopamine in our brains the way drugs and alcohol too. It's an addiction. I'm no exception. I'm forever looking at friends, people I went to school with, and even the odd randomer I met on a drunken night out 4 years ago, and thinking they're so successful.
"__ has a great new job"
"___ is off travelling"
"___ is in a relationship now"
"___ has lost so much weight, they look great!"
We're all susceptible to this, and it's often the cause of why we procrastinate. Instead of getting motivated, we get down, and create a sense of self-worthlessness.
Someone came up to me one day and said that I'm always smiling, always happy. Someone else told me that I always looked well. Even another someone told one of my mates, "that Niamh Campbell one never seems to be in the house, she has the life of it". Those are comments I never really took on board, but then I realised that to some, I might be that person, that people look at through a screen and envy from time to time.
Believe me. I never thought I would be that person, nor do I want to be!
That's just it though. We're all just people, and it's natural and perfectly fine to feel a bit crappy or jealous sometimes. If we let ourselves get too down about it though, that's when things need to change. Just remember, no one on social media is ever as happy as they seem. and you are never doing as badly as you may think you are.
The point is, stop procrastinating. If you want to do something, and you're afraid of being utterly shite at it, do it anyway. Be shite. Or whatever you think is shite. Cus it's not. Doing nothing is being shite. That's what I'm doing.
Even this post I've written; I've been adding, deleting and deliberating over it for a number of weeks now, because my OCD perfectionism is another reason for why I put things off. But hopefully whoever reading this will see where I'm coming from, and hopefully I'll post more.... even if you all think I'm a dose (which of course I am but rightfully so).
Until next time :) xxx
