Tuesday, January 5, 2021

Easy

 If you want to make an easy job seem mighty hard, just keep putting off doing it.” (Olin Miller)

Dear Procrastination,

There are times when you are my worst enemy, but my best friend. There are things that I often need to be accomplished, but you manage to bribe me with things that I believe deserve my attention and time more. Are you aware of all the tasks that need to be done? You probably aren’t aware because you’re always knocking at my door, shoving more interesting activities into my face.

Not only do you come in many forms, but it’s very hard to remain focused when you push the urge to become increasingly apathetic towards my work with Netflix, hanging out with my friends, and video games. Do you really expect me to want to do my work when there’s a more entertaining Netflix show that I need to catch up on?

My time has completely been taken away by you. Random tasks for some reason bring slow times and exhaustion while you manage to speed up time and prolong my exhaustion to do something that I shouldn’t be doing at 2 A.M. I constantly talk about needing to get more sleep, but choosing to browse Twitter or Instagram late at night rather than sleeping.

Are you trying to tell me that other task is more important than the true necessities? There are things I could have done better, days where I’d be less cranky or tired due to getting more sleep at night, and probably activities I could have arrived on time if you weren’t throwing a million other things I shouldn’t be doing. My life would probably be a little better and less stressful if I didn’t give into your magic spell of temptation.

Now, I know that I shouldn’t be blaming everything on you as you don’t deserve that. You are doing your job of doing whatever may bring me less stress and more enjoyment, but I can’t continue rushing through everything because I chose to follow whatever path you’ve thrown me on. It’s worse with people like me as my attention span is already short which makes everything ten times easier for you.

Procrastination, I honestly can’t lie to you. There have been times where I’ve done better on things due to your pull. I am more likely to pay closer attention to details if I need to finish something. There have been times where I hadn’t need to work on or go through with something, which makes everything you’ve pushed me to do worth it as I’ll have more time on whatever else I need to get done.

I honestly can’t tell if you’re my best friend or my worst enemy. You’ll be around for all of my life, and it’s terrible that I’ll never be able to decide if you’re completely bad or completely good for me. Even with that being said, I ask you to do me just one favor. Please let me succeed, and don’t be the biggest contribution towards any major failures in my life.

Your Biggest Customer,

Marvin Stewart[i]



[i] Adapted from “An Open Letter to Procrastination” by Marvin Stewart

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