Straight from the Narwhal's Mouth - May

The Lazy Narwhal

--- Steven Albers

     

     Have you ever felt like doing absolutely nothing all day besides watch reruns of Survivor, not leaving the confines of your room? That’s called laziness. Have you ever done that with a big project looming over you? That’s called procrastination. Have you ever wondered what makes escargot taste so good? That’s called butter and heavy cream.

     Being lazy is one thing, but putting laziness in front of important matters is something else entirely. It’s understandable to do nothing when there’s really nothing to do (there’s always something, though, but more on that later). I just fear that most of us (myself included) let that nothing syndrome collide with life itself and make us, well, stagnant. How can you expect to finish your term paper if every five minutes you’re checking Facebook or playing Robot Unicorn Attack (I scored 39710 just now)?

     Of course I’m preaching to the choir when I say this. Nobody tries to be lazy; it just happens. Is there a way around it, though? Maybe there is; maybe there isn’t. Laziness operates on a case by case basis, that is, I’ll be lazy for different reasons and with a different antidote than you. Regardless, there are a couple solutions that may or may not work for you (They probably won’t work; nobody stops being lazy overnight. But it’s worth a try!). Funny enough, the simplest fix is often times the best one: turn your assignment into a game. I figure that if you’re taking a break from work to play a game, why not turn work into a game? Challenge yourself to get things done in a timely fashion, and maybe reward yourself if you win (although you may break the bank doing this).

     Alternatively you could try finding someone to keep you on track, while you do the same for him/her. For example, tell your friend to drop a cinder block on your toe if you stop writing your Criminal Justice paper, and promise to drop a cinder block on her toe if she doesn’t get her math assignment in on time. Don’t do something quite that extreme, but you get the point.

     Besides these simpler, sometimes goofier solutions, perhaps the best anti-lazy strategy I’ve encountered came from my advisor a few weeks ago. She told me that the school of engineering is one of the hardest things a college student can put themselves into, and because of that she had me write a personal mission statement; a little paragraph that I can refer to whenever which tells me what I want to do with that future degree-why I’m dumping so many man-hours into what I call worthless projects and tests at the time. I won’t tell you mine (that’s part of the magic of it), but trust me when I say it keeps me on track more than anything else. With the world passing us by faster and faster every day, we have to make absolutely sure that we don’t step aside and let it pass.