It’s a condition, not a choice.
This article is for those who understand that binge-watching is not a term used for chilling or having a good time. It’s a mindless activity!
I am a philosopher at heart and naturally educated at reading people. I am a free counsellor with no degree in hand. I am a people person. I love working with & for new people, making friends from different walks of life, and learning about their life experiences at large. I am a firm believer in stories that invent personalities for who they are and how they are.
One common factor that I observed in people, aka friends, who have a habit of procrastinating is that they tend to develop a condition around themselves that feels safe and secure. They despise opening-up to others about their true selves. Nevertheless, this trait has nothing to do with their personality type. They can be an introvert, an extrovert, or an ambivert by nature, but when it comes to dropping their guard down, they commit to defying it hard. Often, if they’re forced to feel like an open gate, they would rather choose to exit, lie, or smartly slide onto the next topic, deviating themselves from being intimate in a conversation is more important.
They avoid anything new, comfort matters.
In many cases, I have come across personalities who love spending time on their own. They are not hungry for the company of others, as they loathe people who trigger their incompetence. They often end up missing out on chances at celebrations, family functions, and get-togethers. They are always in a comfortable space, where they are not questioned or obtained under any obligation.
They are the laziest ones.
They feed on the test and trial methods in their lives. They work silently on their aims and choose not to tell anyone about them because of the fear of being asked about their progress report. They are the laziest ones, loitering around any job done late. They will choose the tasks that will not require dire attention. They are always in the surviving mode of rejuvenating themselves over distracting activities—sleeping more, watching more, eating more—anything that’s more and not useful for them.
They assume the worst-case scenarios:
They delay doing things that they want to persuade or enact because they prioritize thinking of the worst-case scenarios over staying optimistic in their lives. They are all the time focused on ‘what if’ something goes wrong or not as per their plan. Moreover, they lack the energy to build another ‘Plan B’.
They lack confidence in facing challenges.
They might invite a change suitable to their lifestyle, but they can’t stand anything that may challenge them to adjust to a new setting. It’s because they have become accustomed to low self-esteem and a lack of confidence. Perhaps, they have faced failures in their lives by being stuck in relationships where they have been demoralized. I have met people who shared stories from their childhood where they faced abandonment issues by their parents or friends or merely by a group of people.
Sometimes failing an important examination at an early stage in life can give rise to a deeply rooted insecurity that grows stronger over time. Such occurrences result in the feeling that you lack something good in yourself and that you’re not deserving of a particular job, a lifestyle, a relationship, or life as a whole.
They keep plans scattered in their heads:
It shivers them to keep a neat calendar. Although people who are the most organized can be the worst at procrastinating, they want everything around them to be well-settled and good-looking before they can jump off to their essential task. Keeping it aligned takes them years, sometimes they need to fix that relationship causing insecurity, or maybe buy a home before starting a new hobby, or maybe delay living the best moments of life because they lack getting something right.
And when they actually begin to form consistency in doing something, they can any day fall back to the same old patterns, delaying things and breaking that smooth cycle. The reason is only one: they have plenty of room to self-doubt and scattered plans to water each day rather than focusing on the goal itself.
For them, ‘words speak louder than actions’:
Please tuck it in your belt and don’t show us that accolade. As much as they hate people boasting about their success stories, they also loathe putting themselves into action. They will keep watering the lies to feel like their bucket is blooming fresh, just to stand a little better in their own safe bubble of imagination. Here, they’re always winning, but slowly, which for others is going nowhere.
They have high hopes but little drive.
Have you heard the lyrics from this melodious one, “High hopes takes us to where we started,” form Kodaline — High Hopes (youtube.com) This song is one clear example that shows how aspirations built on the ground of imagination ultimately lead us to meet the square one situation.
These behaviors are sad to deal with. Rest: many people and my dearest friends are living this format day in and day out. They keep learning and unlearning from their experiences in life to reach somewhere in life and feel appreciated for once.
In my next article, I will be sharing tips to help my friends and people. The good news is that it’s seemingly possible to make that life better and more productive than before. I have seen many of my peers follow a few techniques and come through fantastically.