The beginner's guide to procrastination

Have you ever wanted to procrastinate but that pesky proper education that your responsible parents drilled into you is getting in the way? Do not worry young grasshopper, just follow the vague guidelines displayed in this poorly written article and you too may one day be a useless addition to society, a parasite feeding off relatives you managed to convince that you are going through “a rough patch” or that you are on “an internal journey of self-discovery”. Do not worry if that little voice in your mind tells you to stop reading this article and do something productive. By the time you have internalized the wisdom written below, your mind will stop working almost entirely and you will gain amazing powers! Yes, I said amazing powers, like being able to postpone urgent matters to some unspecified point in the future, while feeling only mildly concerned about the consequences or learning to feel comfortable in your skin even if you haven’t showered or changed clothes in 5 days. Those are just two of the many abilities that the master procrastinator gains in his journey to become the ultimate sloth. To the untrained eye, this path may seem too great for a regular person to undertake but let me assure you that the elite procrastinators are as average as it gets and everybody can awaken their inner sloth and reach a similar level relatively quickly. Just empty your mind and leave it that way. The beautiful part of the procrastinator philosophy is that it can be taught to literally anybody, regardless of sex, nationality, age, sexual orientation or religion. This is a universal language understood only by those who are willing to let someone else do the hard work. Here is the beginner’s list of mantras to be recited every day until they become an inseparable part of your system of values:

• If you can do it today, then you can definitely do it tomorrow or some other time as well;
• You are not lazing around, you are conserving your energy for that special task that destiny has prepared for you;
• You do not need to work to improve yourself; you were born with a special gift, although you don’t know what it is; but you definitely have it, like, for real;
• The knowledge that you gain from watching sitcoms will come in handy one day;
• Your room is the holy sanctuary which houses the miracle that is you; your mom or girlfriend has no authority within these four walls; you reign supreme;
• You are not mindlessly browsing the internet, you are adding valuable information to the encyclopedic knowledge that you already possess;
• Taking a shower on a daily basis is merely a suggestion propagated by people with a social life; you are different, so your hygiene standards should reflect that;
• wearing pajamas for four days straight is totally acceptable; you are fashionable and sadly, misunderstood because you are ahead of the times;
• pressing deadlines are a concept invented by psychotic people with a stick up their bottoms; dude, relax and just let success come to you;
• Work dulls the mind and destroys the body; you love yourself too much to do that;
• Sometimes you have to go to work(it sucks, I know) but you will not toil away until your spirit is broken; you go against this by refusing to be a slave to the system; you are basically a revolutionary sticking it to the Man;
• Work is boring and an insult to your intellect; it would be better to spend your time unwinding from this strenuous activity for a while; let’s say, for the next 2 months or so;
• The greatest procrastinator in the world once said: ………...; well, nobody knows what he said because he was alone in his room;
• The professional procrastinator will do today what needed to be done urgently 4 months ago;
• The assignment you “forgot” to do today is helping your employer remember to not bother you with trivial matters;
• If you feel the need to work, just sit down somewhere and wait for it to pass;
• That level 15 Paladin is way more important than feeding your dog; don’t worry, eventually, the hunger will turn him feral and he will escape to the streets, indiscriminately biting everything that looks like food so he’ll basically be fine;
• Your purpose in life is to be happy; why spoil that by adding responsibilities to an already perfect recipe?
• Don’t worry about problems; they have a tendency to disappear or be solved by somebody else if you have the patience and self-control to not get involved;
• Remember my friend: you are like water, constantly looking for the easiest path to follow, flowing around problems;