So I’m really not feeling this. I’m holding back, I’m not really using my real voice. Why? I don’t know. It’s like the idea isn’t coming across the way I had intended.
Here’s a real truth: I am a great procrastinator.
I’ve been good at it as long as I can remember. I don’t shirk my duties, I just postpone them until the very last minute. That is when I find my motivation.
Deadlines are my friend. Write a novel in 30 days? Sure. Edit it and prepare it for publishing when nobody is waiting for it? Give me a few years. Clean the house just to keep it nice? Forget it. Clean it because someone is coming over in an hour? You’ve got it.
Is it shameful? Why haven’t I admitted it before? Why isn’t it a good thing to put on your resume? Okay, I have to say that I just thought of something: I don’t want someone else procrastinating and then handing a project to me without enough time to do it properly. That’s probably not high on the list of desirable skills.
At work, I’m not the same. I like what I’m doing, so I’m not putting it off. I know what needs to be done, so I do it. Somebody needs it done. They are relying on me. They are expecting me to do it. I need someone to expect something of me. It helps.
I’ve always been good at doing what is expected. That is why I did so well in school, it was all about expectations. They told us what we needed to study, when we were going to be tested on it, and I had everything I needed. Oh, I wasn’t perfect, I didn’t get it all right, but I did quite well. Give me a multipe choice test and I’ll do fine, because I will have studied enough to make a good guess.
The other end of the spectrum, where there are no expectations, is my other forte. Fiction is my haven. Nobody expects me to write anything, so I can write whatever comes to me.
I think that I have muffled my voice here by imagining that I might be expected to do this in a certain way. I felt like it needed to be organized and I needed to stay on topic. I turned it into an academic essay with unclear expectations, my worst enemy.
Yuck, yuck, yuck. Time to let it go. Time to lighten up. Nobody out there is reading this anyway. No expectations.
Procrastination is a talent.