Florida Student Uses One Weird Trick To Get Stuff Done! by Patrick

Florida Student Uses One Weird Trick To Get Stuff Done! by Patrick - January 2016 Scholarship Essay

Open the door to my bedroom and you enter the Nation of Procrastination. The floor is vacuumed and mopped, my books are stacked neatly, and all my clothes are folded and put away. My desk sits in the corner of the room, all neat and organized, except for one lonely pile of homework. I’m off to the side, doing something else, anything else, other than homework. I’ve binged my third season of How I Met Your Mother while my mountain of homework sits there and glares at me.

I’ve learned how to land an airplane, how to tie twelve different kinds of knots - I’ve discovered 80’s classical guitar discography and I know every special effect in the Star Wars trilogy. I’ve even picked up the art of Calligraphy and dusted off my old camera to delve into photography - Just to do something else, anything else, other than homework.

If this sounds like you, I can understand. Heck, it took me about an hour to sit down and write what you’re reading now, and I can hear my English homework growling at me from inside my bookbag. For today, I’ve decided that research about car parts and a love affair with How It’s Made are more important than identifying the speaker in Eavan Boland’s A Lost Land. My teachers at school would only shake their heads and my parents are amazed at my athleticism in wasting time, but I know that at midnight there’s a few of my buddies that know exactly how I feel.

It’s not all just about what I think, either. Procrastination is an ailment sweeping the nation, and it’s not wasting any time, either. The Guardian in the UK estimated that the little “beep” e-mail notification causes people to get slightly off task; I know it’s happened to me. However, it costs America a little bit of money - approximately $70 billion a year, according to a professor from Calgary University. What my procrastination costs me is grades and sleep - the two things a teenager needs.

Benjamin Franklin and Henry Ford would be turning in their graves if they knew what I’m doing to myself. The former once said, “‘Tis easier to suppress the first desire, than to satisfy all that follow it.” Henry Ford said, “Good will is one of the few really important assets of life. A determined man can win almost anything that he goes after, but unless, in his getting, he gains good will he has not profited much.” They’re both right.

It’s Saturday evening and I’ve just gotten home from work. Beyond dead, I get a message from a friend of mine, asking if I want to go out and watch a movie. For once, I want to stay home. I’m tired, I’m hungry, and there’s nothing that I want more than a jar of peanut butter and the next season of Shark Tank, but I force myself to go. I almost fall into regret until I get to the mall and two hours later, I forget all about how tired I was. I have a blast and thank myself for getting past that initial hurdle.

Does that sound familiar? I never feel like going to the gym until I’ve been there for 15 minutes, and then I enjoy it. Some more old dead people agree with me: Plutarch said, “Spartans do not ask how many are the enemy but where are they.” If the great Warren Buffet thinks like that, then maybe I should too. “Should” is a funny word, it seems as though I’ve been spending more time with it than with my dad.

I’m a professional when it comes to existential crises. It seems like I procure one out of thin air whenever I have a lot of homework to do. I’ve spent many Sunday nights stuck in “What is the meaning of my life?” mode, and sometimes I come up with clever answers that even feel original. The only one that has ever worked, however, has been disappointingly simple:

Do it.

Already, my automatic slacker response kicks in: “No! My desk is too messy! I have to clear my email inbox! I have to learn about how car alternators work! Anything but that!” And that’s exactly the kind of response that I have to look for. It’s like a video game: Ironically, the correct way forward is the one with the most bad guys. There’s a lot of bad guys on the way to completing my homework, and the final boss is me.

Seven hundred and fifty three words later, I’ve successfully managed to somersault over my English homework and instead complete an essay about avoiding my English homework and completing an essay. Whew. That’s the new year’s resolution: Do it. Motivation will follow action, and action is the only existential answer. So… I just have to do it. I have to stop writing the essay and… Do it.