“Got any ID love?” boomed the towering bouncer (is being the size of a small transit van a prerequisite to stand on a door all night?) It’s another quiet after work drink at my local and on this particular night I clearly looked under 18, which at almost 27 years old, makes me feel slightly giddy. I smugly hand over my *cough* provisional drivers license for study and he helpfully points out that it expires at the end of February.
What the…? I snatch it back, scanning for the date. It’s not possible, it doesn’t, it can’t. That would mean I have gone ten years without learning to drive. Ten years! Then it dawns on me, I remember. I am the all-powerful long time reigning, Queen of procrastination. This is but one of the many cases of my skill at delaying, postponing and avoiding at all costs.
‘I’ve never needed to drive', 'I can’t learn in London', 'I can’t afford the lessons, let alone a car’, I pour my excuses out to anyone who scoffs at my green license. These excuses have become more and more mumbled with each passing birthday. I am just a procrastinator I will put it off until I can get away with it.
Case in point, I thought of this article over a week ago but only now am I actually getting round to writing it. I have a wedding to attend in August, for which I plan to shed half my body weight. I’ll start running tomorrow… I made this promise a month ago. The running trainers remain under my bed untouched. I’ll start a savings account - which currently has 12p in it - because I’ll start next month.
I can talk the talk, but I’m starting to worry that I can’t actually put one ballet pump adorned foot in front of the other and walk the walk. In theory, I am a great doer, in practise I’m a great don’ter. I’m one of the more common species of procrastinating ‘I’m going to travel the world/write a book/go skiing’ type people who never actually follow up on anything.
Is there some kind of imbedded dysfunctional gene that makes procrastinators procrastinate? Or, is it a simple combination of facts? Like, I have the attention span of a gnat thanks to MTV, or that I’m one of four children so I’m convinced there is always something more fun happening elsewhere, which means I never finish anything - well I don’t want to miss out.
I actually get cold sweats when I think about having to do something, and I will look for a short-term way to get out of it. I work much better when the pressure is on, if left to my own devices I will procrastinate, fact. How I got a degree is a mystery!
To summarise, I’m a chronic procrastinator. There’s a website for it you know, I plan to have a look at it… later.
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