Stop Procrastinating Jeremy

I finish chugging down my third energy drink of the day. It’s only 5 o’clock. I crush the empty can and attempt to bank shot it off a wall into the recycling box. I misjudge the angle just alittle bit and the crumpled can bounces awkwardly off the reduce/reuse/recycle side of the blue box. I get up off my computer chair and walk over to slam dunk the can into the pile of recycling. Going back to my room, I pass by a pizza box with one lonely slice left to coagulate on its own. That pizza slice is the only one of its kind to not serve its intended purpose; it is the only one to not be eaten among its brother and sister slices.

That was a wasted thought Jeremy; keep focused on the book review. The book says that smoking is hierarchically constructed according to race, class, and gen…ewww, fruit flies!

I grab a can of Febreeze and use chemical warfare to put an end to the fruit fly infestation around the old slice of pizza. The Febreeze may not kill all fruit flies, but I coat the area with enough spray that any survivors will drown in artificially scented lavender liquid. I throw the pizza box in the garbage and tie up the bag. I take the former fruit fly paradise outside to the side of the road.

Stop procrastinating Jeremy, book review book review book review.

I walk back into my room and I can’t even see my laptop buried beneath all my school papers. Laundry is piled around my bed, protecting it like castle walls. Every schoolbook and binder I have used this semester is littered across my desk and is spilling on the floor. The remains of several meals, hurriedly eaten while working last minute on one of the three papers I have finished already this week, are stacked on top of my mini-fridge. I start grabbing laundry, separating lights from darks, and begin throwing them into a basket.

You are still procrastinating. This feels like a chore, something that NEEDS to be done. But Jeremy, that is what makes chores such dangerous procrastination tools! Video games, TV, Facebook, those are easy to identify as procrastination, but time spent doing laundry and dishes instead of tackling the mountain of work in front of you is time wasted. Seven papers, four books, and three presentations all due in the next two weeks. You put yourself in this situation. Even the shower you took today was a luxury you can’t afford. You are even wasting time thinking about this right now. Get to work!

I flop into my chair and swing around to face the white glow of my computer monitor. The unexpected brightness of the blank Microsoft word document that is supposed to be my book review causes me to squint. I begin typing whatever comes into my head. I will sort out the good stuff from the bad later on. Right now, I concentrate on darkening my computer screen with black text. My eyes quickly begin to get heavy, so I reach into my mini-fridge and pull an energy drink out of the case.

Shoot Jer, you need to get some more.

I hop out of my chair with the frosty can in my hand. I walk to my closet, pull on my coat and put on my shoes as I crack open the energy drink that acts as nitro fuel for my studies. I step outside and start walking to the corner store, sucking down a dozen different kinds of liquid sugar as I go.

Ok, Jeremy, after you get another case of energy drinks you WILL start working again. And as long as you think about the book review on the walk to the store, it won’t count as procrastination. World War II dramatically changed the way people smoked because…

Dealing with "it"

I throw the Kleenex box up in the air and furiously punch it, launching it across the room. Little white pieces of fluff flutter to the ground at my feet. I pick up a pillow and punt it as hard as I can into my closet, causing my dress shirts to slide off their hangers. I throw myself onto my bed, burying my face in my pile of comforters in the corner. I scream at the top of my lungs.

I am muting my primal scream with comforters because I don’t want to give my roommates the impression that this is a cry for help. No, this is just me, dealing with “it”. It doesn’t really matter what “it” is, when you are dealing with “it”, what is important is how you deal with “it”. At this moment, I am dealing with “it” physically, punishing inanimate objects that I have projected my problems onto. That is not the best way of dealing with “it”, but it just seemed appropriate today.

I have many other methods of dealing with “it”, but here are several of my favorite.

1 – Writing music
I pick up Sophie, my acoustic guitar. I throw her strap over my head, grab the pick from its nestled place between her strings, and give my guitar a strum to make sure she’s in tune. Okay, she is. Now, Sophie and I are going to deal with “it”. Depending on what “it” is, I will either proceed to play my heart out and sing at the top of my lungs or finger pick a sad little song to mope along to.

2 – Bottling "it" up
With this method of dealing with “it”, I visualize “it” as a material, physical object in front of me. I slowly, almost sneakily, reach up and snatch "it", holding "it" tightly in my hands. I thrust “it” into my chest, deep into the dark, rarely thought of parts, where my hidden bottle of problems lays. I open it carefully…OH NO! Oh jeez, all my bottled up problems almost escaped. That would have been BAD. I quickly shove “it” in there with the rest of my problems and cork the bottle up. Maybe one day I’ll get to those long sitting issues.

3 – Letting it go
In my opinion, the best way of dealing with “it”. In all my limited clutching and grasping at philosophy, I have found that by accepting and acknowledging “it” as a fact of existence, the inevitable pain that humans must experience, then l can actually let “it” go. This way of dealing with “it” removes “it” completely from myself, sanitizing me, freeing me.

In life, people are constantly dealing with “it”; relationships, bills, jobs, school, all the different varieties of negative human experience. There is no escaping “it”, because “it” can mean so many things. The only thing a person can affect is how we end up dealing with "it". I think next time I’ll take it easier on the Kleenex box and just decide to let “it” go.