This story originally appeared in the Philippine Daily Inquirer on May 18, 1999.
I turned 20 recently, and in those two decades of my existence, sad to say, my life has been one big demonstration of successful procrastination. Almost everything that was remotely significant I did late or not at all. The papers and projects I need to do for school I usually submit long after the deadline (that is, if I do them at all). I am also in the habit of being consistently tardy in all my classes regardless of what subject.
I always exhaust the maximum number of absences allowed, and if the teacher happens to be kind, even a little bit more than that. I often find myself cramming one hour before a long test or periodical examinations, even if I need to do very well so as not to flunk the subject. In fact, even my application for entrance into college, which was pretty important for my future, was submitted late.
Come to think of it, I cannot recall any major project that I finished on time. Since my problem with procrastination has become worse lately, I have been spending some time trying to find out why I habitually postpone doing certain important things. At first I thought I was just downright lazy. It seemed logical to think that I procrastinated because I didn’t want to get up and work until I really had to. As the saying goes, ”Work expands in proportion to the time available.”
But upon further reflection, I realized that my constant procrastination stems from fear of appearing to be a failure. While it is true that I’m quite lazy, my laziness is just one of the results of such fear. It seems that I cannot accept the idea that I am not good enough in the eyes of others. It truly worries me to think that people might consider me a failure. And it is for this reason that I do an important job at the very last minute or I don’t do it at all.
This way, people attribute my mediocre performance to the fact that I didn’t put enough time and effort into my work. I like being told that I could have gotten an ”A” for my paper instead of a ”C” or ”D” if only I didn’t work on it barely two hours before the deadline. I know there must be a psychological explanation for this appearing-not-to-be-a-failure ploy of mine. By making people imagine the success I could have had if only I invested all the necessary effort and time in a project, I lead them to think I’m not a failure.
The beauty of it is that I actually provide them an excuse or explanation for the mediocre results I get. The stupidity of it though is that I actually fail even before I begin the project. This ploy is essentially a self-defeating one. It’s as though I intentionally injured myself before every basketball game so that people would think of how many points I could have made if I were well instead of risking the possibility of not scoring even if I were in very good shape.
What encourages me to keep doing the same thing is that I am more likely than not to get away with procrastination. In school, I almost always end up with a passing mark. And on the rare occasions that I did flunk, I still managed to convince my teachers to give me passing marks. There have also been times when I got the highest grades despite the cramming. Such lucky breaks only encouraged me to continue procrastinating. People contend that reality is nothing more than perception. They say that reality is related to the illusion the mind conjures. I believe this is true. In my life, I have successfully created the illusion that I fail not because of lack of capacity but because I choose to.
And just by not giving other people any concrete reason to doubt this, I succeed in making this illusion real. By acting like I am indifferent and lazy, I keep others from knowing the limits of my potential and make them imagine what I can accomplish if only I do my best. When I first realized this, I thought I was really smart. I got people to think highly of me while I didn’t need to earn their high regard by shedding a lot of sweat and tears.
By failing with style, I succeeded in making people believe I was not a failure. I was genuinely proud of myself until I realized three things. First, I couldn’t keep this up forever without failing in something really important. By continually procrastinating, I am in danger of falling into a deep pit from which I might not be able to get out of. Secondly, after 20 years, I really have not realized my full potential. And lastly, an illusion will always remain an illusion, no matter how many people believe it. This illusion may be a reality to most people but it still is not the truth. In the final analysis, the perceived reality does not count as much as the truth. A couple of centuries ago, for example, people believed that the Earth was flat. This perceived reality in no way changed the fundamental truth that the Earth is as round as round can be. To those who aspire to be successful procrastinators or those who are already hooked on the habit, stop and think. While successful procrastination is an art that requires skill and brains (both of which everyone needs to be a success anyway), it accomplishes nothing except to waste one’s time.
After 20 years of living, I still cannot do the things that I truly want to be able to do. For instance, I still cannot speed read or type very fast. I have yet to lose the extra pounds I carry around. And I have not done a thousand other things because I plan to do them tomorrow. In fact I can fill up dozens of sheets of long bond paper with a list of all the things I plan to do in the future, while I can list down all the remotely important things I have done on half a page and still be left with enough space on which to write Joyce Kilmer’s ”Trees.” Most people would be worried about this. I’m not, because while I have failed to seize the day, I plan to seize tomorrow.
