Ersatz Eloquence

Dearest readers,

I have a confession to make: I am a procrastinator. There. I said it! Despite my wondrous ability to get myself ahead of schedule and write the week's post early in the week, I do procrastinate. My name is Elizabeth, and I am a procrastiholic. I have searched and searched for a cure, but found none. I have looked high and scoured low. I have dug through the earth and sailed through the sky. I have spent lifetimes probing for the cure to procrastination, and still could not find one.

There is no such thing as a cure, for procrastination does exist because everything is procrastination. It's Thursday night, and I had a snarky post written up, but got home too exhausted to draw the pictures that it needed. I had nearly all week to draw them, but I did other things instead and never got to drawing them. That's what we call procrastination.

Right now, I am procrastinating on much needed sleep. And yet I am completing a task I deem important: writing up my usual blog post. Every time I write these posts, I am procrastinating; there is something else "more important" that I could be doing. Always. I have never done the most important thing ever. Never have, never will. I don't even know what it is, but I am sure as heck procrastinating on it. I'm taking classes and getting a college degree when I could be building up my community arts company and "jump-starting my career." I'm learning to play guitar when I could be learning how to perform CPR. I'm writing and directing for high schoolers when I could be mailing off manuscripts to publishers. Everything I do is a procrastination of some kind. I think procrastination is a wonderful thing. I don't want a cure. If I stopped procrastinating, just imagine all the things I wouldn't do!

But procrastination is dangerous. You have to use it wisely. Handle with care. Procrastination can be not only unproductive, but even destructive. And boy, do my brain cells die when that darn TV is on and my distraction-seeking mind clings to it and leaves behind whatever procrastination I had previously been busying myself with. Procrastination can also lend itself to things like not sleeping, not eating, or too much of one or both, and that's not healthy.

So this week's lesson, dear readers, is to recognise that you are procrastinating. Always. Embrace procrastination. Happily declare that you are, in fact, a procrastinator! Buy a "Proud Procrastinator" T-shirt!* Never again feel shame for procrastinating!

But of course, be sure to stick to the good, productive, nondestructive procrastination. Easy, right?

*I was kidding about the T-shirts, unless people actually wanted them. The design will be up Sunday, and that'll be the new poll. Unless you guys give me strong feedback before then.