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Procrastination (1) The word procrastination has been mentioned for the first time in Edward Halls Chronicle, which was published in 16 th century. However, it was not up until comparatively recent times that this term has come to a mass use. Procrastination is best defined as individuals tendency of determining actions and tasks to a later time. Even though that majority of psychologists do not consider procrastination as form of mental disorder, they do refer to procrastination as such that often triggers the development of these disorders. There is no universal agreement as to what causes people to become procrastinators in the first place.
However, it is being commonly agreed upon that there are two types of causes that define procrastinating behavior: physiological and psychological. In her article The Origin and Causes of Procrastination, Debbie Power suggests that, even today, psychologists are not entirely sure as to whether procrastination can be effectively dealt with, since the essence of this type of behavior still remains a subject of an ongoing debate: Researchers understand the definition of procrastination, but they have been plagued with the question, Is procrastination a habit of choice, or is it caused by a medical condition? Based on their research findings surrounding that question, the researchers concluded that there are two main causes: the psychological and the physiological (Power). It is important to understand that most of people are subjected to procrastination, even though the degree, to which they are being affected by it, varies significantly. Thus, it allows us to conclude that word procrastination can also be referred to as politically correct euphemism for the word laziness. In this paper, we will discuss procrastination as complex psychobiological phenomenon that is closely related to the realities of post-modern living.
Let us begin with analyzing the psychological causes of procrastination. (2) When we look at history, it will appear that historical dynamics correspond to peoples unconscious psyche, as such that define their behavior. The history of Western civilization can be thought of as the continuous succession of generations that posses specific psychological traits. For example, in Homers poems, the characters are defined almost exclusively by the strength of their will power. There is nothing else about them. Such people are usually being referred to as representatives of first generation.
They are the fathers of nations, great military leaders and explorers. The history of their lives is read like an epic. People that belong to second generation have both strength and intellect. They are the ones who build and conquer, while strengthening the foundation of earlier accomplishments. Martin Luther and Shakespeare, for example, are the typical representatives of second generation.
As history progresses, people slowly loose their strength and all that there is remaining is intellect. Nineteenth and twentieth centuries are strongly associated with emergence of people of third generation, as such that retain high intellect, while being deprived of physical strength and will power. Nowadays, the psychological qualities of majority of White people in Western countries leave no doubt as to the fact that they belong to third generation. They can be best characterized by their tendency to withdraw form objective reality; because they feel that they simply cannot master it, as it used to be the case when geopolitical dominance of White race in the world was undisputed. This is the reason why it is specifically White intellectuals that are being stereotyped by the Medias as computer nerds, who prefer to live in their imaginary world, while being unable to perform simple physical tasks, like grocery shopping, for example. Such stereotypes do correspond to the objective reality.
White people in the West only nominally remain the masters of their countries, as they are perfectly aware of the fact that it is suicidal for them to show up on the streets of the ghetto, in their own cities, especially after it gets dark. Thus, we can say that it is existential inadequacy of post-modern individuals that results in them becoming psychologically inadequate, which in its turn, causes them to become procrastinators. Although psychologists strive to avoid discussing racial aspects of procrastination, as behavioral phenomenon, the fact is only White people are being affected by procrastination the most. A so-called perfectionist procrastination is a typical white thing.
In the article, from which we have already quoted, Debbie Power makes a good point when she describes the mechanics of perfectionist procrastination: Some procrastinators are considered perfectionists, and because they are afraid of failing, they will put off tasks that they fear and they won't attempt them at all (Power). Thus, we can say that perfectionist procrastination is nothing but a defensive psychological tool, which helps people to ignore their existential inadequateness. As Patricia Stewart rightly notices in her article Procrastination: The procrastinator is often remarkably optimistic about his ability to complete a task on a tight deadline; this is usually accompanied by expressions of reassurance that everything is under control. At some point, he crosses over an imaginary starting time and suddenly realizes, "Oh no! - I am not in control! There isn't enough time! (Stewart). In order words, it is the external circumstances that procrastinator puts blame on, over its inability to complete tasks.
By doing this, procrastinator attains emotional comfort, because in procrastinators eyes, his behavior does not appear to be anomalous. This is why we do not associate laziness of African-Americans with behavioral abnormality, on their part, whereas when we see White procrastinator, we usually come to conclusion that this person needs to pay visit to a psychologist. Apart from racial one, also a socio-political context explains why more and more people in Western countries are being affected by procrastination. The post-modern reality is associated with its strive towards social uniformity. In other words, people are being discouraged from taking active stance in life, because it threatens the existence of bureaucratic machine. In post-modern world, the possession of extraordinary psychological qualities, on the part of a particular individual, represents danger to his well-being, because it undermines the stability of bureaucratic machine, which strives to regulate as many aspects of our lives as possible.
Nikolai Stephens, in his article Guide to Bureaucracy- Part One, was able to define the essence of bureaucracy from contemporary perspective: It is perhaps best to describe bureaucracy as a living beast that must feed to survive. People are its main energy source. Bureaucracy is a social virus whose ultimate mission is to spread across the universe and will eventually encase all living beings in putrid, disgusting, paper filled slime (Stephens). In traditional societies, the influence of bureaucracy used to be limited by the public openness, associated with governments officials conducting their affairs. Nowadays, the situation has changed drastically. For example, when citizens apply for social services, the responses they receive in return are based on the principle of anonymity.
They get to read the official letter that sounds like this: Your request has been denied / approved . Signed. Social Services Officer. Number 03645.
In its turn, this instills citizens with the idea that nothing depends on them and that everything was already being decided for them by some higher authority. As result, people become increasingly indulged in social absenteeism, when it is only the matter of time, before they become affected by depression. As a rule, peoples depression manifests itself in them becoming procrastinators. In her article Stand and Deliver, Maia Szalavitz establishes a strong link between procrastination and depression: Several symptoms of depression feed procrastination. Decision-making is another problem. Because depressed people cant feel much pleasure, all options seem equally bleak, which makes getting started difficult and pointless (Szalavitz).
Although procrastination has traditionally been discussed in negative terms, it appears that it would be wrong, on our part, to refer to it as definite evil. Even before socio-political policies in Western countries began to correspond to the principle of metaphysical insanity, as foundation, upon which they are being built, there were still many people who would find question why do today something that can be done tomorrow? as the most logical of all. In his article Good and Bad Procrastination, Paul Graham suggests that sometimes, procrastination allows individual to concentrate on addressing the issues that really do matter, at the expense of avoiding routinely errands: Good procrastination is avoiding errands to do real work. Errands are so effective at killing great projects that a lot of people use them for that purpose. Someone who has decided to write a novel, for example, will suddenly find that the house needs cleaning.
People who fail to write novels don't do it by sitting in front of a blank page for days without writing anything. They do it by feeding the cat, going out to buy something they need for their apartment, meeting a friend for coffee, checking email (Graham). We can only agree with the author. At the same time, we can say that only exceptional individuals can benefit from being affected by procrastination. However, as we have mentioned earlier, it is becoming increasingly harder for such people to realize their true calling, within a context of todays socio-political reality. In fact, the whole concept of existential greatness has been corrupted to such a degree that now it became a customary practice to resort to word great, when it comes to discussing hockey players, movie stars or TV shows hosts, like Larry King or Oprah Winfrey, whereas as recent as hundred years ago, this would have been impossible.
Therefore, the fact that more and more people now tend to indulge in procrastination needs to be viewed as the symptom that something is rotten in the kingdom of Denmark. (3) As we have mentioned earlier, apart from psychological explanation of procrastination, there is also a physiological one. In his article Research Into Procrastination Shows Surprising Findings, Gregory Harris suggests that procrastination cannot be discussed within a context of behavioral psychology alone, as there is a lot of evidence indicating that peoples predisposition towards becoming procrastinators is genetically predetermined: It's estimated that about 15 - 20 per cent of the general population are procrastinators. And the costs of procrastinating can add up well beyond poor work performance, especially for those who delay filing their taxes or planning their retirement It's still unclear why some people may be more prone to developing procrastination behavior, but some evidence suggests it may be genetic (Harris). It appears that genetic damage to brains prefrontal cortex results in reducing the strength of persons existential motivations. The fact that more and more people are becoming affected by racial mixing reduces their ability to operate with abstract categories. In its turn, this corresponds to their lower capability to rely on their sense of logic, when it comes to dealing with lifes challenges, and undermines the strength of their will power.
In order for individual to complete his planned tasks on time, he needs to be able to understand what the concept of self-discipline stands for. However, this concept is now being associated with political incorrectness, which is why people are being encouraged to think of instant gratification as purpose of their lives. In its turn, the concept of instant gratification is diametrically opposite to the concept of discipline. In traditional societies, people used to be encouraged to seek social prominence, because only socially prominent individual is capable of utilizing its existential potential. In his article Self-Discipline and Moral Health, William Pierce is making a very good point when he suggests that: The person without self-discipline remains infantile in his behavior, and often in his attitudes as well (procrastination).
The person with a high degree of self-discipline is able to keep his infantile urges under firm control and to marshal all of his resources, all of his strength and intelligence, to accomplish what he believes is most important (Pierce). Nowadays, it is being assumed that the value of every person corresponds to his or her ethnic uniqueness, which is why, according to the hawks of political correctness, in order for the individual to be considered as productive member of society, he needs to think of celebration of diversity as its foremost priority. While celebrating diversity, people tend to forget moving lawns, emptying garbage containers and cleaning up their houses. In fact, dumping garbage on the street often represents the way diversified people explore their cultural uniqueness. This comes as no surprise, of course, given the fact that absolutely credible notion of eugenics, as method of improving peoples biological value, has been outlawed, after the end of WWII. It is not a secret that Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), which undermines academic competitiveness of many Hispanic and African-American students, is closely associated with procrastination, as such that define their existential mode more then any other factor.
Therefore, it is only logical to conclude that procrastination, as behavioral phenomenon, can also be linked to the fact that, in Western countries, peoples biological quality is being undermined by promotion of multiculturalism. Throughout the history, it was peoples indulgence in racial mixing, which resulted in decline of great ancient civilizations, because such mixing deprives people of spiritual qualities that allowed their ancestors to build and to maintain civilization, in the first place. Individual who celebrates diversity is procrastinator by definition, because he is incapable of seeing any ontological purpose in his existence, other then satisfaction of its anomalistic instincts. Why go through inconveniences of academic process, for example, if it is so much easier to conceive as many kids as possible and to begin receiving welfare checks from the government, as parent of multiple children?
In her article Hispanic Family Values? , Heather Mac Donald suggests that the fertility rate of certain ethnic groups in America undermine the integrity of this nation, because, apart from creating a financial burden for Federal government, it also results in increasing the number of citizens, whose biological makeup will never allow them to become a productive members of society: Hispanic immigrants bring near Third World levels of fertility to America, coupled with what were once thought to be First World levels of illegitimacy. Given what psychologists and sociologists now know about the much higher likelihood of social pathology among those who grow up in single-mother households, the Hispanic baby boom is certain to produce more juvenile delinquents, more school failure, more welfare use, and more teen pregnancy in the future (Mac Donald). We can also add that this baby boom is associated with more and more Americans considering procrastination as normal way of life, because the notion of siesta implies that there is nothing to do, from 12 am to 6 pm, except drinking Corona beer and smoking marijuana. (4) To conclude this paper, we need to say once again that there are many psychological and biological factors that define procrastinating behavior. However, it is possible to link such behavior to the loss of existential vitality, on the part of White people affected by it, as he have illustrated earlier. For the mongrelized citizens, procrastination is the essential component of their lifestyles, and it is best referred to as laziness. Even though that social applications of procrastination might appear as being negligible, it is not quite the case.
For example, 60 % of Microsoft's software programmers are naturalized Americans citizens that received their education in Russia. Bill Gates was simply unable to find enough native-born Americans qualified for the job. The situation gets worse, as time goes by. The racial marginalization of American society causes more and more students to choose in favor of humanitarian careers fashion designers, actors, PR representatives, beauticians etc. , because they rightly consider such careers as the lest challenging, in intellectual sense of this word. In order for someone to become an engineer, for example, apart form having IQ higher then 85, he will also need to understand what the concept of self-discipline stands for, because memorizing mathematical formulas is incompatible with procrastination in principle.
Therefore, the best way of addressing procrastination, when Whites are concerned, is sending them to a boot camp, where they will learn the basics of discipline. In case with colored people, situation appears to be much more complex, this is why the concept of affirmative action was invented in the first place. When it is impossible to prevent people from behaving as ultimate procrastinators, there is an only one option remains to discuss such peoples social absenteeism within a context of their civil rights and freedoms. Bibliography: Harris, Gregory Research Into Procrastination Shows Surprising Findings. 15 Jan. 2007.
Medical News Today. 2 May 2008. web Graham, Paul Good and Bad Procrastination. 2005. Paul Graham. Com. 2 May 2008.
web Power, Debbie Origin and Causes of Procrastination. 2002. Helium. 2 May 2008. web Pierce, William Self-Discipline and Moral Health. 2001. National Alliance. 2 May 2008. web Stewart, Patricia Procrastination. 2005. Cal Poly.
Academic Skills Center. 2 May 2008. web Stephens, Nikolai. Guide to Bureaucracy - Part One. 17 May 2006. Brain snap.
Com. 2 May 2008. web Szalavitz, Maia Stand and Deliver. 26 Aug. 2006. Psychology Today. 2 May 2008. web Mac Donald, Heather Hispanic Family Values? . 2006. City Journal. 2 May 2008. web Abstract: This paper discusses procrastination as behavioral phenomenon, within historical, psychological and physiological contexts.
Outline: Introduction Historical and Psychological aspects Physiological aspects Conclusion
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