Every year since I was about seven, there has been a recurring item in my new year’s resolutions: to learn how to do a standing front flip/backflip. Twelve years later, I am still nowhere closer to doing one than I was back then. It’s not that life hasn’t presented me with opportunities to learn, it’s just that there was always one reason or another to put it on the backburner. Tomorrow was always the day that I was going to learn, never today.

In life, the two things that I dedicate the majority of my time to are sleeping and procrastinating (on many occasions I combine the two and make sleep my method of procrastination). ‘Why do things today when you can do them tomorrow?’ should be my slogan. Something I’ve recently noticed is that I have three types of procrastination: trivial, consequential and detrimental. While I am usually based in the trivial camp, as I’m getting older, these habits are starting to become more consequential and, in a few cases, detrimental.

Trivial procrastination normally involves me binge watching a TV series or spending hours of my day surfing the internet. Usually its rooted in laziness or tiredness. When I don’t want to do an assignment, when picking up one of my musical instruments feels like the biggest task in the world, or when I can’t go and practice basketball because I’m still recovering from the fitness session that we had two weeks ago. I know that in my heart of hearts, I’ll drag myself out of bed and complete the tasks in the next day or two, but for the time being I’d rather focus my attentions elsewhere.

Consequential delays are becoming a more frequent occurrence. It isn’t always a case of me putting off dealing with huge issues. In fact, often it involves me having to do something as simple as sending a text.

This summer, for the first time in my life, I have been a working woman. I have been undertaking a work placement at an engineering firm and volunteered at a Christian youth festival called Newday. Working with the firm has led to clarity in my decision making with regards to the engineering discipline I want to pursue. The company were also very accommodating of my previously planned holidays and allowed me to split my 8 weeks with them into two sets of 4 weeks. In addition to this there has been the financial benefit which has allowed me to afford a car and gift my friends and family in the ways I desire. As for my Newday experience, that was awesome, and was really impactful for me. I probably took away more from my experience serving with my team this year, than I did whilst coming to the festival as a delegate (which is saying something). This summer for me has been full of invaluable experiences and a real period of growth, but I almost missed out on all of it because of procrastination: my inability to bring myself to send two simple texts.

Two simple texts were all it took to arrange my summer plans. One to someone I knew who worked at the engineering firm, and the other to the head of the Newday TEVO team. In the past I have done brief stints with both organizations, so it wasn’t a case of going through a series of job applications and gruelling interviews, all I needed to do was reach out and send a casual message. Something along the lines of:

Hey, it’s Ife.

I worked with you last year and had a great time. I was really hoping to get the chance to do more experience with you guys this year. If this is possible, how would I go about applying for the role?

Kind Regards,

Ife

Now, that doesn’t seem very hard, but for me it was like I had just be tasked with writing a PhD dissertation, and there was never a right time to start working on it. I’m not proud to say that I put off sending those texts for weeks, maybe even a month or two. Had it not been for my mum pressing me to contact the firm and me telling my friend that whilst I was visiting her she had to make sure that I contacted the guy from Newday, there is an 80% chance that those messages would never have been sent.

Looking back on it now, it seems a bit dumb. However, I know that if I were to be in that position again, the same thing would probably happen. For me, consequential procrastination is rooted in my overthinking.

“What if they don’t remember me?”

“They could have a lot going on in their lives right now, I don’t really need to burden them with a text.”

“Between when I last saw them and now they could have been dismissed from their positions and me messaging them could just be putting salt in the wound.”

“They may have been sucked into a pocket dimension and are now floating in the vast emptiness of space…”

As you can see my thoughts ranged from the rational to the ridiculous, but to me they were all justified reasons for postponing the issue until tomorrow. I guess it was just a case of me needing to shut down my mind and pay more attention to two classic sayings. ‘You never know until you try’ and ‘the only way to fail is to not try’. Had I not tried to reach out to them, I would have not had the amazing summer that I am currently experiencing, and that would truly be a shame.

The final type of procrastination I have is detrimental procrastination. This one stifles my growth and, if left untreated, will be my ultimate downfall. I think I only really deal with this in one aspect of my life: relationships. For as long as I can remember I have struggled with socializing and the relational aspects of life. Expressing my thoughts to others is often a challenge. At times I find that there is a disconnect between my brain and mouth which prevents the fluid flow of speech.

My other issue is that my comfort zone is the world of me, myself and I. I’m a very independent person and enjoy my own company a bit too much. Whether it’s reading a book, strumming a guitar, spending some time on an empty basketball court with nothing but a ball in my hand, a lot of my favourite pastimes involve me being in a world of my own.

When I was younger I didn’t see a problem with my love of seclusion, but as I have gotten older and entered the real world, I have begun to realise that I have to invest more time into the relational aspects of life.

For so long, I have been trying to postpone it. I seemed to always be waiting for the perfect time. Initially I said to myself that when I went to secondary school I’d start to develop better relationships with others. But days turned to weeks, which turned to months and then years. So, I delayed the start date till sixth form and when I failed to meet that, it was postponed till adulthood. It was always a problem for the future Ife to deal with, not the one in the present.

I’m not sure if this happened to all children, but I know that most African kids I know can relate to this. As a child my dad often asked me to hand him the TV remote. This in itself was not a big ask, but when he called me I was usually upstairs in my bedroom. I would rush down the stairs, thinking it was a matter of great importance, only to find him pointing to a remote which was about six inches out of his reach.

I was always puzzled. On innumerable occasions my parents had delivered the line,

“God gave you hands, so use them.”

Was I missing something? Had the Lord not blessed my father with the same hand capabilities?

Anyway, I’ve come to realize that my approach to relationships is often similar to my dad’s attitude towards the TV remote. I am waiting for them to come to me. Over the years I’ve gradually been building up social skills and life keeps presenting me with opportunities to try and develop my communication skills. The things I need are right in front of me, but instead of using my abilities to grab a hold of the skills and begin to make progress, I am sitting pretty on the sofa, calling on the world to hand it to me.

Unfortunately, I haven’t been blessed with a frowning eight-year-old to begrudgingly run down the stairs to help me out. There is only so long I can keep yelling out, so eventually I will need to act. The stakes for me are slightly higher than missing the first few minutes of the football game, so it’s probably better that I deal with the issue today rather than tomorrow.

“Yesterday is history, tomorrow’s a mystery, but today is a gift, that’s why it’s called the present.”

– Bil Keane