Waiting until the last minute

 

By Alex Ott
April 25, 2008

 

I have an hour left in class, and I’m over a week past my deadline. In roughly 200 words, I have to explain why leading a life of procrastination is just as good as being the early bird.

 

The truth of the matter is that right now, as I type frantically at the keyboard, my words and thoughts seem clearer than two weeks ago when I first knew I had to write this. It’s the pressure, the deadline. That’s my drive, that’s my muse.

 

The threat of having my editors grow more and more frustrated with me to the point of rage is what causes my jumbled stream of consciousness to become smooth and flowing. If I wanted to, I could plan my writings down to a tee, painstakingly agonizing over every last word and punctuation mark. But that’s not me, that’s not life. Life is random, happening right now. How often do things turn out exactly the way we plan? Life throws you curveballs and we do our best to hit them. Sometimes life just won’t throw you the pitch to begin with.

 

Many eloquent, professional speakers in the world spend hours rehearsing and composing their speeches. Many do not. Some of our greatest presidents – Lincoln, Kennedy, Teddy Roosevelt – are widely noted as being some of the most spontaneous speakers in our nation’s history.

 

I’m hitting print now. I’m not too sure what my editors will think of this, but to me, I know that this is far better than anything I would have been able to write two weeks ago, when it would’ve been on time.