Use This Letter to Break-Up With Your Distracting Invisible Friend: Procrastination

To my old, invisible friend, procrastination…

I have meant to write to you for what seems like eons now. But you’re always with me, getting in my way with your viciously deceitful taunts. And it’s not like I can write this under your evil eye, constantly staring at me; judging me; forcing me to do what you want.

That’s the problem, procrastination: You never leave me alone. Sometimes you seem like my best friend, but truly, you are my worst enemy.

I don’t know if I will ever be able to resist your sweet, enticing calls, pulling me out from the slums of study into the bright light of my phone screen. You’re always playing your best game when I need to play mine. Whenever I have an important essay due the next day, you’re right there to drag me into your deceptively-utopic paradise.

The homework, the assignments, the practice problems, all the tasks that I actually desperately needed to accomplish… you force me to toss them all carelessly to the side. But they can’t be. They need to be finished, and to the highest standard possible.

You don’t understand how much this means to me. I need to focus; I need to work; I need to succeed. But you grab my dreams and hide them at the end of Tumblr’s never-ending homepage.

I get where you’re coming from. I promise, I really do. You make a fair point: Why should I spend my short youth doing tedious and boring tasks that will bring me no immediate glee, when I could be having fun with you? But I must ask you this: Have you ever felt that amazing sensation when your hard work is paid off? When you study for what seems like forever and you get a phenomenal result? When you tirelessly slog through an assignment and earn an amazing mark?

What you don’t understand is that hard work pays off. Giving up things pays off. Studying pays off. Sometimes you have to sacrifice immediate happiness for a sensational feeling you may feel in the future. And this is just in the short term; imagine how amazing achieving a major, long term goal will be.

This needs to end now. You must leave. I can’t have you around anymore. And I don’t just mean for tonight. I mean forever. I can’t keep putting things aside for your sake. I can’t spend hours Insta-stalking that one person I vaguely remember from school. I can’t waste any more precious time buried deep in the Netflix gallery. I can’t keep letting you blind me from my aspirations.

I apologise if this seems harsh, but since you've treated me so selfishly these past few years, you deserve it. Please don’t get in the way of my future. Let me succeed, and leave me alone.

Yours sincerely,

An incredibly frustrated student.

Hannan Dempsey is one of Student Edge’s student contributors. See more student contributions here.

Photo: Netflix