Tomorrow's my official last day of high school, as graduation is next Friday. The thing is, I take my government exam, which is 250-300 questions (NO multiple choice, NO word banks; all short answer and all fill in the blanks, court cases, identifying, all that junk). Yet I sit here tonight, with pages and pages I've completed of a study guide that will be roughly around 10 to 15 extra bonus points, that I have barely looked at for more than five minutes. I know that studying for this monstrosity is mandatory, but I continuously am holding it off because trying to remember all of this crap is like swallowing a dictionary. What's the root of procrastination? What have you been procrastinating on lately that's been eating you up in the long run or you know that it's going to subsequently mar you?
I don't really have anything that I need to do, so I guess I'm not technically procrastinating on anything, but there are things that I want to do and don't do. Why...? I don't know. Sometimes it's just easier to sit on the couch watching a movie and thinking about what I want to do than it is to actually start doing it. Oh, and scratch that about not having anything I need to do. Because I've had like four CDs I'm supposed to review for like two or three months. Oops...
First of all, hooray for graduation! You're so lucky; I've got one more year to go. Study-study-study! It's only one more day you have to put up with this. For me, procrastination stems from either A) general disinterest in the subject or B) evading the massive task I have to complete --and sometimes there's option C, which is the disgusting combination of them both. For instance, I'm very interested in English, right? So my English final, which was a take-home essay that I finished in about twenty minutes and received an A on, was the first thing I did. But my math final, the bane of junior-year existance, was much more important as it decided on the fact of whether I would be passing Precalculus or not. And yet... I spent roughly the same time studying for that final. This was a classic case of option A; it wasnt because studying was going to be hard or that I had a massive study guide to complete (it was already finished), it was the fact that I genuinely hate math. Then there's sometimes when I dont write. Am I disinterested in it? Certainly not; it's one of my favourite things to do, be it an essay or a short story or a novel or a poem or even a posting here. But sometimes the sheer task of "what-do-I-write-what-comes-next-where-do-I-start-what-would-he-say-why-is-this-important-what-will-I-do-when-this-is-done" rears it's ugly head, and I have a very difficult time starting in some cases. Option B. And then option C... Is like 400 pages of math equations. Just kill me; I'm not suicidal --it'd just be a lot easier. Specifically, I've been procrastinating on a short story that I set a due-date for back in April... Of course, it's Option B again; it's a magnificent task becaues the writing style I'm forcing myself to follow is something I've never done before. And then I'm procrastinating on the cleaning and cookery of it all. Option A... But the best one is putting off my page design. I have to get some photos, Photoshop them, and then put all of the elements together to form a decent magazine layout for my school newspaper. I could go today; after all, the photos I need would be awesome if I took them within this week, but... I dont want to do it; I'm disinterested in the subject of the photos, I dont like photography, and it wasnt my job in the first place.
Procrastination is derived from fear, at least for me. If I'm not working on a project, I can't fail at it. I can't become frustrated with it. I can distance myself from it emotionally and further distance myself from the ultimate task of facing the ending, submitting the project, and waiting for rejection letters. A comfortable, motionless apathy.
Ah procrastination, my dear old friend. My procrastination stems from hoping that if I put off said task long enough, it will magically disappear! It hasn't happened yet, but it might, so I'll keep trying! And right now I'm procrastinating on typing out my college notes from the past three years. They sit on my desk in their old binders, but I avert my eyes, I shall keep hope alive!
I procrastinate a lot, but it's never really been a problem for me. If I have a deadline, I always finish what I need to do by then. Somehow I can always pull it off at the last minute if I need to.
That has crossed my mind. In high school we had an end of the year bonfire where we happily burned our all notes and roasted hot dogs and made smores over the embers. Give me another three years, and that's probably what I'll do with my college notes, too.
I took a horrible, horrible anthropology class in college, and after that semester ended, we had what I called the Effigy Bonfire in my backyard. I burned all my notes AND my textbook from that class, Joel burned a bunch of cross-country flight plans he had to make that he hated, and my sister burned all her notes from the classes she hated. It was fun.
The root of procrastination is the fear of failure. We procrastinate because we are afraid to fail, but then the procrastination usually leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy of our belief that we will, in deed, fail. By procrastinating, we have an outlet for our blame placement. "The test was too hard." "I just didn't understand." "It is all pointless." We look for some other outlet for our reason for our failure, when in fact, the only reason for failing is our own self-doubt. If we already believe we will fail, we make it happen by procrastinating. If we didn't procrastinate, we study hard, and we still fail, then we will confirm that we are a failure at life. This possible outcome scares the ever living beegesus out of us, so we purposely cause ourselves to fail (though it is a subconscious act.) We are so afraid that we will be a failure at life, (low self-esteem anyone?) that we try to fail on purpose so that we will not have to explore the notion that we might not have succeeded with hard work. There is also the other reason. Intentional sabotage of the road we are traveling on. When we really don't want the path set in front of us, we can sometimes subconsciously cause our own failure. This isn't due to low self-esteem or the fear of failure, but a desire to fail, because there is something else we would rather do. This other thing might not seem reasonable, or responsible, or expected of us, but that is what we really want. Thus, we unconsciously create our failure to nix the undesirable option. Maybe you really want to pass this test and you are scared of failing. Or maybe you really don't want to take this exam and you are trying to fail on purpose (albeit not consciously.)
I don't procrastinate because I'm scared of failing...I do it because I'm really, really unmotivated and lazy...
I agree with Hidden on this one; I'm always afraid of failure, but at this point, I've failed so many times, I'm not really limited by it anymore.
