“Ang tamad mo, gawin mo na lang kasi ‘yung mga dapat mong gawin”
“Last month pa binigay ‘yan, bakit ngayon mo lang ginagawa?”
“’Di ka nanaman natulog kagabi tapos late ka.”
I’m a procrastinator, but not without a reason. I admit, in the eyes of other people, I do look like I am a lazy teen who has too many responsibilities on her plate; but still, it hurts to hear these lines especially from those closest to you.
Back in high school, I headed a number of clubs and committees on top of being a student and varsity player. An overachiever, you may say; but the truth is, I was just taking a lot more than I could handle to distract myself and not overthink things.
It’s stupid. To be killing myself over responsibilities I could have just not accepted in the first place. But compared to thinking about whether my mom is having a heart attack at home when she takes more than a few minutes to answer my text, or whether my sister has gotten into a car accident when she didn’t answer my call, I’d rather choose the former.
These responsibilities then eat me from the inside. Anxiety causes me to strive for perfection and fear failure so much that I beat myself up when I don’t exceed expectations. In every task, I have to acquire the validation of others just to pacify the voice inside me saying you messed up, you should just go home and cry inside your room.
It’s not as simple as being sad when failing a test. It’s me being absent on the day of the test regardless of whether I studied or not because I’m too afraid to take it. The voice inside me just continuously says you’ll fail.
The fear of failure also comes with procrastination.
Anxiety paralyzes me, stopping me from working on projects and tasks that have been assigned ages ago. I know, I should have done it. A badly written paper is better than nothing, but I just couldn’t get myself to do it. I try to write, but I would always end up deleting what I’ve written because they just aren’t good enough.
It then goes on to a cycle. I’ll always have to create a schedule or a plan because I might leave out a task – but I am never able to follow it. Again, I procrastinate, putting off sleep – because things from last week have piled up to this week, and I must finish them.
But then again, I get too worried about all the things I need to finish that I can’t get myself to do things. I end up getting nothing done. In the eyes of others, I’m a lazy potato who just wasted all the time she had.
It may be hard for some to understand, but not all procrastinators are just ‘lazy’ or just ‘unorganized.’ Others like me are in a constant battle with anxiety. I’ve slowly learned to accept that in some days, we will win the battle; but in some days, we will lose – and that’s okay.
We don’t have to beat ourselves up for not finishing everything on our to-do list. Let’s be proud even if we only finish one item. After all, what’s most important is that we did our best to get through the day.
(ALSO READ: 5 Times my Anxiety Told Me Not to Do It, but 5 Times I Still Did)
