Say what.... Procrastination

This long word literally means putting "forward" to 'to-morrow' for it is derived from the latin word cras 'to-morrow' and the prefix pro 'before' of 'forward' of course it is sometime necessary and wise to postpone a decision or an action where hasty conclusions would be foolish but procrastination always means putting things off for tomorrow which ought to be done to day. It is due to laziness and leads us to shirk our duties at present and inclines us to defer them to some future time.

Thus the fault of procrastination is just the opposite of the virtue of punctuality. A punctual person will take care of what has to be done exactly at the right time. A person who delays never does anything at the right time but puts it off for tomorrow or next week or next year.

Procrastination if it is not nipped in the bud soon grows into a bad habit which makes the punctual performance of daily duties impossible. It may be due to sheer laziness and disinclination to work when work seems inconvenient or it may be due to the illusion that there will be plenty of time in the future to do all we have to do.

This is an illusion, because when we think thus we forget that even if we have more time tomorrow. We shall have more work to do and in addition to tomorrow's legitimate work. Every day we put off the work we ought to do and we are piling up work for tomorrow, and we will find that the arrears of undone work is too big to overtake.

Procrastination it is said is the thief of time we have only a limited amount of time at our disposal and every hour we wasted in idleness is stolen by that thief. Time waste is time lost.

The lazy man says never do today what you can put off till tomorrow.

But the wise and busy man takes as his motto the old proverbs. Never put off till tomorrow. What you can do today.

And the man who systematically clears off the work that belongs to each day as it comes not only avoids the mental burden of unperformed duties but is also the only man who knows true leisure.

For at the end of the day he can spend what time remains in recreation and enjoyment with a clear conscience. Knowing he is well ahead with his work. So we should take as our motto "Do it now!"

Nimmi Coonghe, Negombo.