I, Procrastinator

Just to warn you, this essay is a little bit off the norm.  I'm not talking about travel or place or my family or, um, anything respectable.  Instead, I'm going to talk about a subject that makes me squirm with shame.  I'm going to talk about procrastination -- and specifically, teachers who procrastinate -- and specifically, me.

Honestly, I wasn't even going to post this.  I wrote the bones out as a sort of therapy-kickstarter-thing, and to put it on the internet seemed self-indulgent.  But my friend Shari (a magical creature who is good at words and feelings and making me feel like a loved human being) seemed to think would be okay, so here it is.

(Does recognizing something as self-indulgent and doing it anyway make it less self-indulgent, or more?)


Here's the thing:  research has proven (according to the ever-reliable Internet) that if you're a procrastinator early in life, you're probably going to be a procrastinator for the rest of your life.  So if you're a kid who procrastinated, and you become a teacher, you still procrastinate -- even as you spend your time hypocritically telling your kids how terrible procrastination is.  

Actually, that's not hypocritical, and I'm sure my kids would not be shocked to learn that I put things off.  Procrastination does feel terrible; every second of the process is bad.  

Here's what non-procrastinators don't understand about procrastination: that yes, it's a self-made hell, but that no, it's not simple or easy to stop.  Anxiety breeds procrastination.  Procrastination breeds anxiety.  This goes on until you're sitting in the South Village Starbucks in Sanlitun, sweat is streaming down your face, and you're fighting to breathe.

There are about a million reasons why I was the closest to having a panic attack I'd been since my senior year of college.  One of them is that for whatever reason, everyone in Beijing seemed to have forgotten about personal space yesterday -- seriously, people, you do NOT need to stand that close behind me in line, and by the way, if you're not on a plane?  You don't get to stick your foot in my lap when you're sitting at a table next to me.  FIND ANOTHER PLACE FOR YOUR FOOT.

Most of it was the procrastination, though.  So, how do I explain this to non-procrastinators?  What are the factors?

Okay, sure -- laziness is one of them.  Procrastination often starts with feelings of "ohhh, it's so NICE out! I should probably go for a bike ride," or "but the newest Laurie King book just came out!" or "oh god a coma-nap is calling to me."  I do enjoy a good coma-nap.

Right behind that easy target, though, there's always a lurking feeling of anxiety.  Fear is the killer, and the only way I've ever been able to kick myself out of my procrastination is by labeling myself a coward, because if there's one thing I refuse to be, it's a wimp.

So, let's list it out:  what am I afraid of?  (Though I'm unwilling to speak for others than myself, I feel relatively certain that other teacher-procrastinators may relate to some of these.)

• my student's essays sucking
• which would mean they'd fail their exams
• which would mean I broke them
• which would mean I'm a terrible teacher
• which would mean I've wasted my life

• not finishing my grading on time
• which would mean I'm a terrible teacher
• which would mean I've wasted my life

• not having a job next year
• which would mean I'm a terrible teacher
• which would mean I've wasted my life

• not socializing enough or responding to my friends' emails
• which would mean I'm a terrible friend
• which would mean I'm a terrible person
• which would mean I'll be alone forever

See?  It's a terrible, terrible spiral.  It's SEVERAL terrible spirals.  You would think these fears would galvanize me into a) grading things in a more timely manner, b) being more proactive in looking for a job, and c) responding to my friends' emails right away.  But no!  That would be logical.  Instead, I build up walls between me and my fears: I ignore my grading in favor of reading, my email in favor of planning, my job hunt in favor of TV.  Ultimately, I ignore all of it in favor of sleep.

There's something there about commitment, too.  By committing to any one of these areas, I'm NOT committing to anything else, so I'm afraid to start anything.  I'm paralyzed.

And here's where it gets really crazy.  What I wanted to do this weekend was watch Daredevil and what I was supposed to do was grade 37 exams.  What I did was... internet.  Not only did I not commit to my grading, I was similarly afraid to commit to a TV SHOW.

I am broken.  I know this, but to want to fix it, I had to sit in Starbucks, grading a terrible essay and trying not to hyperventilate, while also wanting to drown the guy whose foot kept kicking my grading, my number one mantra of teaching echoing through my head:  I am never to allow my personal issues to hurt my students.  Never, ever, ever.

Because if I am broken, I am also the one with the tools to fix myself.  And these are the tools I will use:

1)  Write it out.  Put it in words.  Do not rip into yourself and call this "just more procrastination"; you need this.  Call it naming.
2)  Eat a piece of fruit.  You haven't done this in weeks days, and it might be one of the reasons you feel so weird.
3)  Start to grade.  Grade 10 essays.  After you've graded 10 essays, watch an episode of Daredevil.  Then grade another 10.  Repeat.
4)  Make sure you have coffee in the house.  It's going to be a long night, but that's on you.
5)  Go to sleep when you're done, or when none of the essays make sense anymore.
6)  Breathe.
7)  When you wake up, drink some more coffee.
8)  Respond to some emails.
9)  Write one cover letter.
10)  Be brave.  

My teacher-friends and I have been musing about the relative virtues of love and detachment over email recently.  And here's the thing:  I am never going to be able to detach myself from the world.  I don't want to.  I love it too much, and I'm not ashamed of that: it's what gives me my energy and my courage and everything I hold dear about myself.

To love something, though, is to recognize that it's going to scare you and hurt you sometimes.  And to love your students can feel like you're throwing all your love into a huge sucking vacuum of space.    If you don't want to become a fragile, desiccated, coma-napping husk of a human, you have to keep some of it back for yourself.

And if you're lucky, you have magical creature friends like mine who can help.