Alexander J Marr
Vicki Pallo
Unit I Essay
29 September 2015
‘Pro’crastination?
Haven’t you ever wished that there was a way to eliminate or do away with any work you
had to do, as if the push of a button could make the work go away at least for a decent amount of
time? Let’s say that theoretically there is such a button but it doesn’t remove the deadline it only
removes the need to do the work for a short amount of time. Now let’s bring this button into
reality and call it a lie, a lie that when told stops others from asking you if your paper is done or
how much you have left. This is my experience in which I had lied about completing a 10 page
paper so my parents would stop pestering or asking me if it was done, however I learned pretty
quick how big of a mistake that was.
To explain the situation a little further, this happened last school year and as part of the
big senior project we had to write a 10 page research paper based upon an 80 hour internship
completed the previous summer. Being that my internship was done with a personal fitness
trainer I chose to base my paper on the topics of self-improvement; what ways of working out
are better for someone, should a trainer be used, and what the benefits of stretching before and
after a workout were.
Prior to this project the longest paper I had ever written was three to three and a half
pages long, knowing this you can see how I was already a bit stressed about this paper.
Thankfully the teachers had given us a little more than a month to complete this paper. It should
have been a breeze, however for some reason I can’t remember I thought it would have been a
good idea to waste that time given to us for the essay on computer games, YouTube and other
dumb activates until we had about a week till the rough draft was due. I ended up writing this
essay while I was in other classes and inserting too many block quotes for the teachers liking and
sacrificed attention to other classes that whole week.
I avoided having to do this work by telling my parents and my project teacher that I was
well under way or finished with the paper so that I would be free to goof off and do the fun stuff
I really wanted to do. Because every night while I completed my other work for my other classes
my parents would ask at least once how much I had left in my paper. I would tell them I had
completed a bit more each night so that they wouldn’t bother me about not working on the paper.
Meanwhile each day the work would just pile up upon itself causing me to be even more
stressed out about the project than when it started and being around the same time as college
applications the stress on me was enough to actually cause me to have severe anxiety about
whether or not anything would go in my favor. I ended up making my whole life a lot harder
than it needed to be because I wanted to goof off and play games instead of completing my
actual work.
Now if I had done the proper thing and told my parents and teachers how I was in
actuality I would have been a whole lot better off because they would have kept me in check and
made sure that I stayed on task and up to date with the paper I would have had the time to get the
paper proof read by the teacher and could have gotten a better grade than what I actually ended
up getting which was not satisfactory to say the least.
To say that my lies had caused a few little problems would be an understatement to say
the least. There is no such thing as a button to get rid of your problems or any work you have.
The only way to properly get rid of work is to just sit down and do it bit by bit until it is
thoroughly completed, and only by doing so will you keep a low stress level and a sound mind.