I Confess

I've always been highly annoyed by well-prepared people who proudly proclaim in September that they just finished wrapping all of their Christmas gifts. Smiling and nodding, I usually make some inane comment while my blood boils and I long to shake the smugness right out of them. No, I'm not hiding a propensity for violent behaviour, but I do have a confession to make and I'm finally ready to admit it. I am a procrastinator. There, I've said it. I think I've been one all my life – with the exception of giving birth. I somehow managed to do that ahead of schedule three times in a row. But that might have something to do with medical circumstances rather than my own initiative.

My recollection of elementary and high school years contains numerous moments of near panic followed by hours of intense preparation as due dates for assignments and exams loomed perilously close. This pattern seemed to repeat itself in college and even sometimes crept into the workplace in later years. It's not that I'm lazy or nonchalant about my work. On the contrary, I have a troublesome habit of over analyzing matters which often results in unnecessary self-inflicted pressure when deadlines are involved.

For instance, after taxing my brain to its limits during the past fifteen months of enrolment in a distance education program and having achieved a degree of success so far, I hit a roadblock in preparing my final project, the most comprehensive challenge of all. I pondered ideas over and over again; rejected them over and over again; sat at the computer to put words on paper (so to speak) over and over again; and got nowhere over and over again. My mind wandered to an amazingly varied range of topics to distract me from the real task and I even found myself cleaning the toilet or washing floors to avoid concentrating on my assignment. Then the calendar date smacked me right in the gob a few weeks ago when the page rolled over to October with its colorful depictions of falling leaves and carved pumpkins. OMG! Panic time again! Is there some perverse aspect of my character which prevents me from becoming fully engaged until adrenalin flows through my veins, startling me into action? I finally got down to business, completed the project, and submitted it with one week to spare. Wow! Maybe I'm improving.

Now for that Christmas list which has been sitting on my coffee table for the past week or so. I'm sure I'll get around to it before December 24^th. Yep, it's definitely time to stop procrastinating. Starting tomorrow.