“Courtney you HAVE to study for you French quiz.” I sternly told myself. I unlocked the front door and slowly pushed it open. "Mom! I'm home.” I said. My voice echoed throughout the deserted house. No reply. This was not good, I was all alone and no one was here to make sure I was going to study for my French Quiz. I unpacked my bags and plopped down on the big, comfy couch.
“Okay. You had a hard day you can watch television for 15 minutes.” I told myself. After I my 15 minutes of relaxing I pulled out my laptop. I clicked on Safari and Tumblr, my home screen, popped up. “Okay Courtney; you can spend 4 minutes on Tumblr.” I told calmly myself even though I knew I should be studying. After mindlessly reblogging pictures onto my Tumblr I looked up at the clock. My jaw dropped. I was only supposed to be on Tumblr for four minutes, not a half hour!
“Come on Courtney, you really, really need to study for your French quiz.” I aggressively murmured to myself. I took a deep breath and quickly typed Quizlet into the search bar. To be completely honest I don't know exactly what happened, but before I knew it I was browsing through my newsfeed on Facebook. As I scrolled up my newsfeed something caught my eye. "Don't miss the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show Tonight!" the post read. My eye twitched.
“I absolutely have to watch the fashion show.” I anxiously told myself.
“It is only once a year! If I did not watch this then what would be next? Missing the Thanksgiving day parade?“ I thought to myself. After persuading myself I finally gave in. Within a few minutes I was sitting on the sofa with a bag of freshly popped popcorn in my hands watching the magnificent Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. After the fabulous show was over I was once again in the position I was in an hour ago. I really did not want to study for French. I sat on my bed and flipped through my binder. I stopped when a paper caught my attention. It was the paper that Ms. Fleming gave us to help guide us in writing our blog post.
“I really should work on my blog post. I mean I can study for French afterwards.” I persuasively told myself. Content on my decision I pulled out my shiny blue vocabulary book and began to flip through the pages while searching for a word that would inspire me. While I was flipping through the pages one word caught my eye. The word was procrastination. I stared at the word for a second. Was this a sign? I typed in the definition of procrastination into the Google search bar. The definition quickly popped up: procrastination- the act or habit of procrastinating or putting off or delaying, especially something requiring immediate attention. I tried to ignore the fact that I had very possibly just been given a sign to stop procrastinating and study for my quiz. Instead of heeding the very obvious sign I decided to try to find a video to accompany my blog post about procrastination. I searched through the pages and pages of procrastination videos until I found one that looked good to me. The video was of a middle aged man. The first thing he said was, “If you are watching this video about procrastination you are probably procrastinating right now.” He was right. It was eleven o’clock and I had not gotten anything done besides the life changing discovery that I really am a procrastinator. After five and a half hours I was finally ready to study. I took out all the necessary supplies to study for French and looked over the material I need to know.
“Then again I can just wake up early tomorrow morning to study.” I told myself.
Procrastination, the putting off of something you need to do, can be seen all throughout history. In 800 B.C. Hedroid, a poet, wisely wrote,
“A man who puts off work is always at hand-grips with ruin.” Why have so many people been dealing with procrastination since the beginning of time? Well we have to fight the urges to procrastinate simply because the way our brain is wired. The urge to procrastinate is a metaphorical “tug of war” between the limbic system (the unaware desire center) and the prefrontal cortex (the planner). Why is it that most people usually end up doing what they want to do instead of what they need to do? This is simply because your limbic system developed earlier and is farther developed than your prefrontal cortex which is usually not fully developed until you are in your twenties. Your limbic system tells you things like “Run!” when you are being chased. The prefrontal cortex is the newer less developed part of the brain that tells you that you have to study for the big test tomorrow. The brain is very much like the angel and devil that are often seen standing on people’s shoulders in numerous cartoon shows. Because your limbic system is more developed it is a lot easier to give in to whatever it wants to do. When you grow older you usually have better self control and discipline because your prefrontal cortex is more developed. The only way to avoid procrastination is to have self control. It may be very hard at times but you will definitely feel better once you have gotten your dreaded task out of the way. How would our society be different if everyone always gave into our limbic system and procrastinated? Which part of the brain do you think is more important and why? Do you ever think it is good to procrastinate?
If society always listened to our limbic system it would be a disaster. No one would ever accomplish anything and no tasks would be finished. We all know some people who have an extreme will power over themselves and do not give in to temptations like procrastinating. I think it is very easy to procrastinate in high school but i know plenty of adults including my parents who have fully developed prefrontal cortex' and still put off work that they do not want to do until a later time when they are close to a deadline and have to get it done. It is also okay to give in to your limbic system every now and then especially when you are tired and need a break. There's nothing like the feeling of finishing your homework and having time before you go to sleep to watch tv, read a book, or go on the computer. Downtime is good, if we never gave ourselves a break we would all be nervous wrecks! So yes if you mentally need a break from all your work i think it is not the end of the world to procrastinate a little bit and relax. But to just keep in mind that whatever work you are currently putting off is going to have to be completed sometime and it will come back and stare you in the face until you do so.
ReplyDeleteIf procrastination became the standard for work in society, then everything would fall apart. Society depends on the workers who keep working despite the lazy workers who fail to keep up the pace of society. Our limbic system definitely comes in second place compared to prefrontal cortex. If we gave into our limbic system, no work would be completed, and everyone would procrastinate. If everyone procrastinates, that means that nothing is being done. Now, a certain element of procrastination is healthy; not everybody can keep on working, or have enough self control to always do your work on schedule. So, even though the limbic system ultimately comes in second, it is a very close second that could not be skipped, because society would go mad if all we did was work. In the long run, however, if the work piled up, and everyone would have to do the work at the last minute, it becomes as stressful as a month of procrastinating. Let's say if you procrastinate for one day, you have some qualms about that decision, but you still decide to not complete your work. Multiply that one day by the number of days you have procrastinated, then squish all that stress into the night before all the work is due. It is definitely better to not even procrastinate in the first place, because in the end you will definitely regret it.
ReplyDeleteIf everybody procrastinated the whole economy would change. Industries such as TV, video games, and junk food would flourish, and there would be a decrease in the number of college graduates. If we never developed our prefrontal complex, that would mean the elderly would act like teenagers and adults would lose some of the authority the hold over kids. The limbic system is the more important part of the brain because without it there would be no balance. If the limbic system controls our instincts, maybe it was more useful to cavemen who died when they were 30 and worried about being chased by sabertooth tigers than it is to modern humans. I think that, in the majority of situations, it is not good to procrastinate. There is a difference in taking time to make a thoughtful decision and putting things off.
ReplyDeleteIf our society never got anything down, it would be a disaster. No one would get anything done. Like construction projects, bills to be passed, etc. I think the prefrontal cortex is more important because it is the planning part of your brain. If did not plan, nothing would ever happen or get done around here. I think a little bit of procrastination is good every once in a while. If we were always busy bees 24/7, we would go insane really fast. You need a little break in your day. If you do decide to take a little break, do not get too distracted. You still need to get your homework done!
ReplyDeleteIf everyone gave into their limbic system and procrastinated ALL the time, then everything in our world would be insanely out of order. It would take forever to get things done, whether you are talking about our government, the weather, the media, or our teachers grading our papers. Our economy would have gotten better so much more slowly after the stock market crash. If a hurricane came, then the information would not be given to the public in time for them to prepare. We would find out the news from all over the world much later, and be vulnerable in our lack of knowledge of worldwide events. I could go on and on. Based on the above information, I can determine that the prefrontal cortex is more essential to life. The limbic system is almost just as important, but without the prefrontal cortex we wouldn’t mature or make good choices, which is more destructive than procrastination. I really do not think procrastination is ever a good thing, but everyone does some time in their lives. It’s the extremes of procrastination that we must monitor.
ReplyDeleteIn our society, if everyone always gave into their limbic system, then our world would be much less advanced then it is today. Think about it, if you procrastinated all of the time, would you ever do your homework? Would your teacher even assign homework? Our world would have none of the technology that it has today, and people would have half as many relationships. The reason that relationships would be so dull if everyone procrastinated, is that sometimes meeting with friends or diving into situations where you could meet new people, takes too much energy. I think that neither part of the brain is more important then the other. These two parts of the brain balance each other out perfectly. I explained what would happen if there was only the procrastination part of the brain, but if the prefrontal cortex existed by itself, then people would never have any fun. At first, it seems like the prefrontal cortex is more important then the limbic system, but it turns out that you really can't have one without the other. I think that procrastinating can be good as long as you don't let it control you, so maybe you don't have to start homework the second you get home, but I think that after 30 minutes you should definitely get started.
ReplyDelete