A Real Pro...

Sometimes I see myself as a real Pro...no!, not a real Professional, but a real Procrastinator...I confess I have been a real procrastinator from as early as I can remember and I am wondering if I wasn't born with this amazing gift! I would put off doing my household chores until right before my patient Mom and Dad would check to see if I had completed my tasks. I would delay in collecting money on my paper route and would have to borrow money to pay Mr. Morrison,the paperboy manager, from my parents or my brother, who always seemed to have gotten his money on time and promise to pay them back as soon as I collected the delinquent accounts.

I can remember having to practice piano and my teacher Mrs. Howard Cook and my parents would expect so many hours per week per lesson. I would try to put off the practicing until I absolutely had to have it done... trying to cram hours into a few minutes of practice... (I think it's called cheating or, Heaven help us...Lying...something a preacher's kid should never do or at least get caught doing.)The only one I cheated was myself and of course maybe the Lord.

School was never a challenge for me. I could make pretty good grades without really trying. But then teachers started to give us work projects and book reports and deadlines. It's funny how a three week deadline at the announcing of it seems like an eternity but it flies by and gains momentum as it draws closer and closer. This leads to what we "Pros" affectionately call "all nighters" which were always accompanied by countless cups of caffeine and platefuls of carbs (energy foods like pizza rolls and Butterfingers) and the following morning we were always blessed with great amounts of energy(Not!) and dark circles under our eyes (I was mistakenly identified once as a giant racoon bi-ped creature.) You would think that as I grew older I would change my ways but in college I found that I pulled these with regularity and let's not even talk about it in graduate school.

As a professional in a professional world, I find that I sometimes slide back into my former ways and try to delay the inevitable...not meeting deadlines, but for the most part Life happens and I have to use my "grownup" triage skills to discern what things could be considered optional for now and what things could be counted as mandatory and necessary.

To my horrified regret and dismay, I have discovered that not only do I suffer from being "A Pro" but I am a "carrier" of the dreaded disease like Typhoid Mary...I guess you could call me Procrastinoid Paul. I might be spreading this joy around. Some people in close proximity seem to catch this from me (although I think the Bible calls it sowing and reaping) and what is really sad is I think I gave it to one of my immediate descendents. Thankfully, the other has always been the opposite and loves to get things done way ahead of time, almost to the point of being obsessive compulsive.

Do you remember Y2K? Yeah! I was one of the few people who was looking forward to it. All I could think about was that we could rid of all of these "time saving" computers and maybe, just maybe, I could catch up on things I had gotten so far behind on, like reading 237 books that I kept putting off until I got some extra down time. Y2K had so much promise! Oh Well!

So, now I come to the point of this blog, which is: I have backslid into my old ways in turning this project in on time. I am late, I'm late for this very important date.:) Lord, help me not to porcrastinate and help me to get ahead.