A Procrastinated Essay

What role does procrastination play in your life?

            I’m always late. Everyone who knows me knows that. I have the most tardies in the school. Teachers and coaches look directly at me when they remind the whole group of an early bus departure. It’s gotten to the point where my friends will invite me to things ten minutes earlier so I will be on time. While I claim that I am “fashionably late”, the truth is that it’s a problem of procrastination.

            I simply don’t leave the house on time. Logically, the solution would be to just leave more time to get ready to begin to leave the house. In theory it’s a wonderful solution – an innovation that exemplifies the problem solving minds that a lab school cultivates. However, it’s not as easy in practice. I always manage to use all of the time allotted. I set up my system: if my first class starts at 8:00, I should leave the house at 7:30 so I have plenty of time to finish printing a paper once I get to school since travel time is only twenty minutes with traffic. The plan is ten minutes for breakfast, three for teeth brushing, seven minutes for getting dressed and a couple extra just in case. Everything goes smoothly until I get distracted by an email or Facebook notification and decide it’s not a problem if I check it right now since I have loads of time to get ready. One thing leads to another and before I know it I’m knee-deep in college searches or cat videos with only five minutes left. No amount of reminders and alarms can keep me from falling down the rabbit hole.

            I try. I really do. But my priorities are skewed. I guess it’s what some people would call a hamartia – a fatal flaw. I get excited about things and I want to do them in that instant that I think about them. That’s why I read the sixth Harry Potter book in one sitting. The world needs people with energy and people that get inspired to the point where they can’t wait any longer to achieve their dreams. Unfortunately, there’s just not enough time for everything to get done and getting leaving the house gets pushed off later and later. Thankfully, I’ve been surrounded by kind and understanding people in my life. The administrator pardoned 5 hours of my tardy service. Teachers will hold the bus and extra minute. My friends still invite me to dinner. I try not to take advantage of it. I’m honestly not a malicious person. And I know that I’m wrong and that it’s something I need to fix. But not right now. I’ll work on that later.