It is Monday morning and I have slept
in, thanks to Thanksgiving. In fact, it's twelve o'clock and I am free for the
afternoon. As usual, I sit in front of the . television after I clean myself
up, staring endlessly at the screen with my finger clicking on the remote. I
realize that I have a draft due on Thursday, but I justify my procrastination
with reasons like: "there is still lots of time."
Life is faster now, and people in the 90's are
supposed to organize and plan in order to keep up; however, it seems to me that
more people are procrastinating than ever before. When I ask people why they
procrastinate, they often supply reasons like: this task won't take me a long time;
the pressure makes me to work more efficiently; there were emergencies; and
there were other important things. Some of these reasons sounds legitimate, but
I think these reasons are just excuses for people's fear of failure, fear of
lost security, and need for pressure.
Back
high school, I had a friend, Eric, who dropped out of school because of bad
grades. As his friend, I knew he was doing fine until the period of final
exams. He was a smart and responsible person which laziness is not a factor of
his bad grades. Eric could not pick up the books soon enough before the exam
because he was afraid of failure. Since Eric's older brothers had achieved
excellence academic records and great careers, Eric' parents expected him to
follow his brothers' foot step. As the result, Eric was afraid to try because
he feared to fail his parents' expectation. When he realized the problem, it
was too late.
It is two o'clock in the morning. The computer
is on, the coffee maker is cooking, and I am under a lot of stress. "There
isn't a lot of time left," I keep telling my self as I watch the blank
piece of paper in front of me. "I know I can do it," I keep
encouraging my self while my mind generates zero ideas for my essay: which is
due six hours from now.
Everyone I know procrastinates, my friends,
relatives, even people in government. Back in Taipei, the Mayor, Mayor Chen,
delayed getting rid of gangs in the city.
"I am going to issue a policy that will
eventually stop gangs from spreading in our community," promised Mayor
Chen of Taipei during his election campaign. Mayor Chen won the election, but
he didn*t do anything about the gangs for three years. He was afraid of
success. If he got rid of the gangs, he would hurt the economy and if he hurt
the economy, he would lose his job. Finally, pressure made him act.
"Mayor Chen's dragnet operation has l
successfully disintegrate Taiwan's sinister gangs' infiltration into Taiwan's
economy," and "The successful
dragnet operation will secure the Mayor Chen's percentage of votes in the next
month's election," are the headlines in recent newspapers.
This is a situation where I just start writing
my term paper six hours before the date line. I was given two weeks time to
complete the essay, but I could not put my mind on the assignment until I felt
the stress from the time limitation pressure. I do have spare time and thoughts
of writing the essay within the two weeks; however, the my tendency laziness
won battle over the my sense of responsibility.
I need pressure to get me working.
No matter what anyone is or what anyone does,
every now and then he will procrastinate. Procrastination is a tendency that
substantially exists in the human nature. People can always fight
procrastination with consistency or sense of responsibility but they will never
win the battle.
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