The Good, the Bad and the Procrastinators

According to Dr. Oz, it can actually be a good thing to procrastinate. Dr. Oz attributed the tendency to procrastinate to immaturity--teens and college students who are notorious for playing when they should be studying, drinking when they should be writing and pranking when they should be figuring.  The reasoning behind the notion that there is an up side is that when the time comes to take action on the delayed matter, adrenaline kicks you into high gear and, voila!, you accomplish your goal just under the wire.  It's wonderful, trust me.  Adrenaline causes a rush that cannot be duplicated by any street drug, except maybe...no, none that I can think of.  The "procrastinate then take-action-as-fast-as-you-possibly-can-without-suffering-penalties" is a trip, man!  What we Resistant Grays used to call "a natural high."

OK, we never called it that.  I was the only one in my school clique engaging in that risky behavior.  I used to eat when I should be studying, shop when I should be writing and daydream when I should be figuring.  (Visualize Prissy from Gone with the Wind, strolling home at a leisurely pace, sliding a stick across the fence slats, humming a slow dirge.)

Then suddenly that report would be upon me.  (In Prissy's case, Melanie's baby was pushing through and Scarlett was fuming.)  "Report?  I don't know nuthin' about no report, Ms. Shea."  My friends never accidentally played "beat-the-bell" in grade school or "quick, is-the-teacher-watching?" in middle school.  They sure as heck didn't succeed in unseating the girl sitting at the desk nearest the door one particularly rushed morning in the fall of 1977--not easy to do at five-feet-zero, 106 pounds (but where there's a will there's a way.) 

Of all my flaws, procrastination seems to wreak the most havoc for family and friends.  And they are not buying the "I have a gap in my prefrontal cortex" explanation.  Well, I'm here to tell you that some of us are, by nature (due to a gap in our prefrontal cortexes), hardcore, unapologetic, lifelong addicts to procrastination. Here's the problem with being this sort of junkie at age 50:  we can't run as fast as we used to.