The daily grind of hard work gets a person polished.
-Anonymous
I don't know who said that, but I wish they weren't so aggravatingly right. I don't like hard work (who does?) but it's necessary. It makes a good impression on my teachers, my classmates, my parents, myself. It's a pity that I would rather surf the internet than write that essay I've been putting off or decorate the project that's due soon. The outcome of hard work is so good, but it's very hard to see until you get right up close to it. In the meantime, the outcome of procrastination is right up in front of your face, dancing around, being absolutely wonderful. The bad part comes much later, when everything piles up and nothing gets done and you're sitting in class with a half-finished project that is nowhere near your best work and you end up getting the worst grade in the class and you're forced to sit there and just try not to seem upset because you're usually the best.
Maybe all of my problems stem from procrastination. It's the hardest thing in the world to tear yourself away from the computer and shush yourself when your brain is crying, "Just five more minutes!" For a while now I've been wanting to stop using the computer for obvious reasons. But when I need it for homework, what am I supposed to do? Inevitably I click on Youtube or Tumblr and waste the day away, smiling and occasionally laughing but not doing anything. I tell myself, "If you finish this part of your project, you get one short Youtube video." Then I get on Youtube and see fifty videos I want to watch, and irrationally figure it won't hurt to just go through them all now so I won't be tempted later. But fifty more stem from that, and I go to bed at midnight cursing my stupidity. I almost wish that I had never found out all of the wonderful things the internet can give me, but then where would be entertainment come from?
Books, obviously. I'm such an idiot. With books there are definite starting and stopping points. You can tell yourself, "One more chapter!" and you listen, because there's something very satisfying about putting a book down at a cliffhanger and drawing out the suspense.
Maybe I'll change my habits. Maybe I won't. Only time will tell.
