The Procrastinator
A Short Narrative by Daniel Christopher Hamby
The Procrastinator was half-sitting-half-lying on the couch, thinking of all the wasted time and missed opportunities. He had been in this half-sitting-half-lying position for two maybe three hours. He was painfully aware of all the time he was wasting on the couch like this, however; this awareness rather than motivating him to do something instead kept him all the more frozen in place — unable to bring himself to do anything because not only was he overwhelmed with all the tasks that he needed to attend to but he was also overwhelmed with all the guilt he felt for not doing said tasks. Finding himself unable to snap out of these feelings, he simply resigned himself to this half-sitting-half-lying position which made him feel even more guilt and in turn made him all the more glued to his couch.
On this one particular night of half-sitting-half-lying on the couch he was thinking of all the creative things he had wanted to do, but for one reason or another never did. He thought of all the musical instruments he wanted to learn, the piano in particular, but he had always found some kind of excuse to not actually commit to it with thoughts like: “It might annoy others in the house, my dad in particular.”, or “I’m too old to learn an instrument, I’ll never become good at it.”
Similar thoughts would penetrate his mind whenever the inkling of a desire to write would occur. So instead of committing to his creative writing ambitions he would distract himself with television, social media, and even reading other authors who he admired. He always told himself he needed to be a good reader in order to be a good writer, which while true, part of why he read so voraciously was to distract himself from the fact that he had never been able to see any of his personal writing projects to the end. At best he was able to complete some writing projects assigned to him by professors at his local college but after a couple of years when the courses became more and more difficult his self-doubt became so detrimental that he gave up on higher education altogether. This was despite the fact that when he did power through an especially difficult assignment he was almost always awarded with high marks, but for The Procrastinator these high marks would often make the pressure to do well on the next big project all the more overwhelming.
This self-doubt was why The Procrastinator now worked a job that he didn’t hate but nevertheless wasn’t satisfied with either. He had settled on being the manager at his local Barnes & Noble, which did satisfy the bibliophile part of his soul, but it left the creative part still wanting. While working at the bookstore he could not shake the feeling that he should be doing something more creative, but he also had a difficult time straying from his typical routine of going to work, coming home and having a few beers, wasting time on the internet, and then doing some reading before falling asleep on the couch.
This burning desire The Procrastinator had to pursue something creative to its end while not having the gumption to do so made him feel as though he were a fish that could not swim underwater. The fish should be able to swim underwater, after all that was what it had evolved to do but through some cruel joke of nature this hypothetical fish could not in fact do so. This was The Procrastinator’s day-to-day experience. Every day he felt this all-consuming desire to do something creative, something purposeful, but every time he gave into the unbearable urge to actually start working on some sort of creative project, he would quickly become discouraged when said creative project failed to live up to his expectations. The more rational side of him knew that it was normal for his early projects to be less than ideal, that even the most accomplished writers and musicians started like this, but the overwhelming feelings of self-doubt along with the dread of the amount of work that it would take to start actually getting good always caused him to quit before he could ever make significant progress.
The Procrastinator thought of all of this that very night while half-sitting-half-lying on the couch. These thoughts made him feel ashamed. Pathetic. Why was he like this? Why was he so undisciplined, unmotivated, and lazy? Why was he so full of self-doubt? Was the self-doubt even genuine or was it merely an excuse to avoid putting in the work required to become good at something? After all, he could always avoid putting in the necessary work if he spent all that available time ruminating about how full of self-doubt he was, how unmotivated he was, how inherently lazy and just plain untalented he was. If he put the blame on all of these external factors, then he could avoid putting in the necessary work while also having a bevy of reasons as to why it was so damn hard to simply sit down and get started.
It was now after midnight, he buried his face in his hands, ashamed of his life choices. After spending even more time in self-loathing which was his least favorite but also favorite daily ritual, the way that Yoga or meditation is for others, he sprung from his couch in what seemed like a frantic hurry. He went to the kitchen and poured himself some whisky. He downed the whisky in a single gulp. After this he poured himself a tall glass of water and proceeded down the hall to his bedroom, glass in hand. He sat down at his computer desk and booted up Word. This was the moment of truth. Would he see whatever it was he had to write through to the end or would it be another false start in a seemingly infinite series of false starts? As he stared at the monitor, he saw his face reflected back at him — he noticed that his beard bore many grey hairs. Seeing this reflection, he knew that if he wanted to live his life with any sort of dignity, if he wanted to be able to look himself in the mirror without cringing, then it would have to be the former.