The Procrastinator's Guide to Living

I suffer from a chronic disease and I am afraid it may be contagious. I remember first seeing signs of this illness during my childhood years. My mother, upon seeing the state of my untidy room, insisted that I straighten things up before dinner time. At that moment my little five-year-old brain was torn between two impulses. I could clean the room up right then and there and be done with it, or I could wait just a little bit longer and do it when I felt like it, aka at the last possible moment. Like so many procrastinators in training, I chose the later. My little ponytail bounced all over the room at a frantic pace before the ascribed deadline when I knew my mother would return to my door. Were those few extra moments of freedom actually worth the stress and frantic pace of those last minutes?

Unfortunately I did not outgrow this condition in my teenage years. A paper was assigned and with a smile I placed it in the "to be done later" file. I went on throughout the week doing a myriad of other unrelated things. I could spend hours checking up on friends' MySpace pages or perusing the latest sales online. Yet there was an ingrained resistance to sitting down and actually completing the task at hand. My eyes would droop the night before it was due and I would pray that somehow my written thoughts were coherent. Were those hours spent perusing photo albums better spent than getting the job done?

Alas, this condition has also carried on into my adult years. At this very moment there is a pile of dishes by my sink and a load of laundry waiting to be folded. How long would it take me to actually get up and do these things? Twenty minutes, tops. How long have they been sitting there in their current state? Thirty-six hours at least. Even this article is a feeble attempt at further procrastination.

Maybe I should just face the facts and get things done the moment I realize the need. I think I will start doing just that . . . tomorrow.