Procrastination is Employed.

"Procrastination is employed." This is a line from a poem of mine that I wrote years back. The basic idea is as such: Procrastination is not something that sneaks up on us, that catches us off guard. No, procrastination is employed--it is not lazy, it is greedy. It needs a job. It is not broke, because we all employ it, but it is so freakin' greedy. It wants all our time, all our attention, all our affection. It lies to us, saying empty things about how much it enjoys spending time with us, but we have no idea that secretly, procrastination is destroying us and all the things we love. Grades suffer, relationships wilt, goals dim in the far distance, and our bodies grow sluggish in their tired lack of utilization.

My point is simply this. There will always, always (do you hear me? ALWAYS!) be a reason not to do the things you need to do. Tomorrow will swallow up the hopeful potential you cooked for it today so ungratefully, you'll swear you'll never feed such high trust into the future again. But you always do, and you always will.

If you're trying to lose weight...
There will always be tests to study for. Projects to work on. Emails to respond to. Reading to be done. You'll get sick, or feel sickness coming on, or be "getting over" being sick. The season finale of your favorite show will be on. You'll get random invites to dinner, to the movies, to coffee--sometimes, you'll even do the inviting, not only employing procrastination, but giving him a promotion. Ladies, you'll PMS. And then you'll get your period. That's a minimum of two weeks of procrastination right there. Enough time to completely stifle all the progress you would have made. You'll be sore, you'll think you need another extra day off from everything. You'll forget to eat dinner when you need to go to the gym; you'll be torn between making dinner (or breakfast, or lunch) rather than working out. You'll think you "deserve" a day off, because your lover dumped you, or you got written up at work, or you made an awful grade on a paper--or maybe you think you deserve it because you kicked butt yesterday.You'll feel dehydrated. Your work out clothes will be in the laundry hamper. The internet will suck you in, and the clock will speed past your awareness. Listen--there are thousands upon thousands of reasons to not do the hard things. There will always be an excuse. (This, obviously, applies to EVERYTHING in life.)

It's up to you (and it's up to me) to cut the bullshit and stick it out. Toughen up. Push past the complacency. Swallow the sore muscles and the aches and cramps. Get off your (our) lazy ass(es) and kick butt, shed pounds, do life. If I don't make something a priority, it will never get done. Ever. That's a scary thought.

So here I am, 206 pounds, tired, lazy, it's that time of the month, and I have studying to do, work to finish, projects to begin. But I'm gonna shrug all that off and do the hard thing. Because success is my only option, and procrastination is unemployed.