The Luck of the Draw

You win some; you lose some.

Life is a numbers game; that's how you find your big break. Your soul mate. Your dream job.

Your dream girl.

You're supposed to seek out these things. Search high and low. Work hard, strive high. But all your life, maybe all you remember are the bouts of procrastination. You remember putting off work or life or friendship or writing, because you could. Because it felt like spending borrowed time, it felt like stealing from death. Or, at the very least, your english literature professor.

But really, all that time you've procrastinated away?

You're just stealing from yourself.

You have to wonder: how am I living? How am I using up my time? Keeping busy is useful, yes. Stagnation leads to an idle mind leads to boredom leads to ennui. So you keep busy. You work hard. You play harder. But, when the unpleasant work comes along, the things you're not sure you'll do well on, can do well on--your reaction filters you into one of two groups.

You take small breaks, you procrastinate a bit. You slow down your thinking. You stop. You're afraid; afraid of failure, afraid of death. Afraid of life, so when work feels coarse and uninviting you borrow more and more time from yourself.

Or maybe you don't. Maybe you realize the time you might spend procrastinating would be much better spent enjoying your leisure after you've finished your work. Maybe you're strong enough and self-aware enough that you realize there's no strict improvement to your circumstances through procrastination. A friend of mine once told me that to determine a person's will, just examine what he's like after working extremely hard for a very long time. Does he have the willpower to then, upon finishing his task at hand, work even harder? Does he cop out? Does he rationalize a break so that he might feel more relaxed?

Which type are you?