Dating : Five Ways to Be a Master Procrastinator

Also, your cat is definitely not an eldritch monster from the outer dimensions

You are ready.

You got the will. The grit. The 80s workout playlist (with seven different variations of the song “Gonna Fly Now” including a very tasteful salsa-remix) and the first-search-result motivation speeches all jammed together like a super-cocktail of pure verve.

You’re subscribed every energy-merchant provider you can find; pages of stolen quotes on Instagram, subreddits full of people encouraging each other online repeatedly, and all the time in the day on this weekend for you to finally do that thing you’ve been meaning to do for the past year.

It’s about the first step.

It’s about that determination.

It’s about wanting it.

It’s about not let another second go to waste. Think about your future self. Think about all the people that came before you. Think about your ancestors and your idols.

Would Forrest Gump give up? You love that movie. It’s been a while since you watched it — no!

You’re staying focus. You close your eyes and focus your zen using that breathing exercise that you learned from that one video that you closed after leaving it have finished. It’s currently still in your watch later playlist. Maybe you should —

Focus.

That’s what you need to do. The first step is all it takes to build some momentum. You know you’re ready. You take that step. You open your eyes.

Jesus, why is your floor so dirty. How can you be mindful and effective when you’re living like this.

1. “How Can I Be Focused While I’m Living Knee-Deep in Midden?”

You attack the floors with savage efficiency, winnowing swaths of filth and dust with your implements of cleansing. You bring your broom to bear with a vision in mind.

This isn’t you wasting your time. You’re just cleaning. Just cleaning. It’s a necessity. If anything this is you being proactive. Yeah. Proactive. You’ve taken the first step. This isn’t you putting off that thing you have to do so badly. This is meant to build up to that.

Pat yourself on the back. You should be proud.

That lasts until you get to the edge of your door and realize that the rest of the house is just as much of a mess. Your will flags. The 80s workout playlist starts playing a dirge for the dying that you accidentally left in the playlist when you were looking into sad music while at work.

It just never ends. No. You have willpower. You have Forrest Gump. Do it for Jenny. Push yourself.

Your heart roars to the war engine that is your vacuum cleaner. The dust fears you. The filth is routed. Your cat’s hairs fade from sight with each step forward. Midway through the vaccuming, you notice splotches of red stains forming a latticework of odd symbology along the floor.

That calls for the mop. The vacuum grunts to a finish as you leave in the middle of the living room with a reminder in the back of your head to go grab it later. Moments later you emerge with the mop to deliver the killing stroke to disease vectors and your own tardiness.

You’re a new person today. You can taste it.

Oddly, it tastes like fire and brimstone.

You can also hear something that resembles Georgian chanting. You blame it on the neighbors and move on.

The mopping processes is an arduous one. Whatever this red stuff is it’s not leaving the carpet. You scrape, rub, curse, and sweat until it fades into smears and then nothingness before you inexorable will.

You disintegrate the trail until you come upon your cat which reacts to your approach by hastily swallowing something with gagging haste. Mewing delicately, your snow-white Ragdoll blinks its cherubic crimson eyes at you innocently.

It’s so cute. You set your mop aside momentarily as you lean down to pet it. You can’t quite remember when you got this cat or how it came into your life but you know without any conceivable doubt that you love this animal.

Even if its odd necklace of interlacing rat and bird limbs tends to smell and there always seems to be a dribble of red leaking from the cat’s jaws.

It’s such a peculiar little fellow.

What were you doing again? Oh yes, the cleaning.

You survey the room. Decent for the effort you put into it. A solid B. Sure you could totally rinse the mop and go over everything a second time but hey, leave some work for tomorrow, right?

Affirming your success in cleaning to yourself, you return to your abode as the playlist has veered off into pagan documentaries. Damn, you left that one in there too.

You really need to get your online life in order too. Can’t just spark joy in one area, it seems.

2. “Motivation Refill Part II: The Refillening”

Some hours later you finally finish deleting the final bits of unread mail in your inbox. You’ve emptied your folders. You’ve cleaned your playlists. Ordered everything perfect sequence. Now you are ready.

Ready for a reward for working so hard.

Hey, motivation is a finite resource. Like oil. Got to refill the tank before you hit the road.

You cue up those videos and you align your feeds. Back to the way it was. Back to the task before when you about to slay your dragon and be the hero of your own story, no matter how unlikely.

Which is why you decided to watch clips of Forrest Gump. Unlikely hero. Own story. Motivation. It was meant to be. Such a good movie. Really gets you in the mood.

Oh, hey, old Rocky clips are being recommended to you too. Neat. You’ve actually never seen the first one. Apparently, it was made a shoe-string budget and no one believed that it would succeed. Talk about some proper motivation fuel.

It’s somewhere north of three in the afternoon when you finish reading the Wikipedia page on Sylvester Stallone. Now there’s a man who really made it. Started low and soared high. What a champion.

A low wail pierces the air. Startled, you wheel around from where the sound originated. Momentarily you catch a glimpse of a shadowy figure dash past the open crook of your door. It sounds like whoever they are, they’re terrified. Gasping. A yelp dies as something impacts with a sickening squelch.

Nervous, you grab your aluminum water bottle and try to remember what you learned from that self-defense class you were enrolled in two years ago. Before life demands any more courage from you, however, the door creaks open wide.

You see your cat standing in the crook of your doorway purring softly.

You laugh at yourself as you wipe away your cold sweat. You always had an active imagination.

Pet the cat.

You pet the cat. Nothing is wrong.

Nothing at all.

There is no twitching corpse left eviscerated in your doorway. Your cat pristine pallid fur is not lined with eldritch symbology marked to the scripture of Adstergoth the Devourer.

It’s just a cat.

You love your cat.

3. “I’m a Respectable Pet Owner! I Keep Their Company!”

Your kitty is purring contently as you are pulling bits of dried matter from its fur. You don’t know what it got into today but whatever it was it sure ran deep.

“Hel — help me,” comes a whispering voice, throat gurgling with an excess of fluid. That’s strange.

It’s not strange. Look at me.

You look at your cat. It meows. It purrs. It exposes its belly for you to rub and scratch. It nibbles and licks at you like a playful child as you indulge your heart to a feast of affection.

True unconditional love. That’s what this is.

Feed me, slave.

Without prompting since you are such a good cat owner, you go off to prepare its feed. Leaving the room, you almost slip on something slick. Stumbling to stability against the wall, you notice a wet patch of red that you obviously missed earlier.

Damn. Now that B has gone to a C. You’re an adult. You grade yourself with stern fairness. That’s how you keep yourself motivated.

Heading down to your basement, you start unlocking that pressure seals to the feeding room door.

Wait? Where did this feeding room come from? When did you have a basement? What are these symbols? Is that screaming you hear, coming from beyond the door?

This is normal. This is how all cats feed.

Your cat brushes against your leg. You curse your sudden distractedness and redouble your efforts to be a good owner.

In no time at all, you finish the sacrifices needed to open the seals and your cat saunters off, mewing contently to itself.

As the sinuous, slick membrane that is the feeding room door clots together again, you tell yourself that you are a good pet owner. You decide to grade on a curve for this good deed and return your prior C back to a B.

And speaking of getting back to something, your task at hand —

Your phone is buzzing. It’s Raj. And Karen. They’re going out drinking and they wondering if you want to go with them.

It’s a really hard choice. You have seen your friends since last month with how busy you’ve been but you also need to get back on track.

Courage rises within you as you prepare yourself to make the right choice.

4. “It’ll Just Be a Couple of Drinks.”

Alright, so when you get there, it’ll be like, six maybe. That means if you stay till around seven or eight you can still get back before its too late and get something done. That’ll work. Yes. That’ll work.

That’s the plan. You promise yourself that’s the plan. Just a couple of drinks and a couple of hours and a couple of friends.

Nothing more.

Not too long later that night you are introduced to Fred. Fred is an interesting guy. Fred also believes that Eskimos are a made-up hoax by Russian bots so that their Polar Bear cyborgization project can be completed in time for the invasion on Anchorage.

Never mind Raj and Karen, Fred gets you.

A few drinks over your soft limit and a few minutes past your curfew you realize that no, he doesn’t get you. He’s already drunk. That and he has started insinuating some uncomfortable opinions on a bear’s fur color and it’s guaranteed superiority within its species.

It’s around this time that you decide to bite down and call it a night.

You say your goodbyes and make your way back. Good job. You’re asserting your willpower. That’s what you need to be doing. Now you’ll get home in time to —

01:32 AM

Good god, what have you done?

The bell-curve bends upside down as you start feeling like you just got a D.

5. “Tomorrow Will Be A Different Day. Motivation Starts Tomorrow!”

You get back home and settle into your nightly routine from years of practiced repetition.

Take off your shoes.

Lock the door.

Bury the freshly tortured dead in your backyard.

Brush your teeth.

Burn your clothes.

Take a shower.

Your crawl into bed feeling like a failure. Cocooned in blankets of self-pity and actual blankets, you brood and ruminate on your own failure as you find yourself too depressed to fall asleep.

You did this. You did this again. How could you?

You promised yourself that this would be the day. The day that you turn it all around and become the person you were always meant to be.

How could this happen?

Shaking yourself out of your mood, you force some rationality into your thinking, freeing yourself from your amygdala with the strength of your prefrontal cortex.

There’s always tomorrow. What was it that Rocky said earlier.

“It’s not about how hard you dip, it’s how hard you can get dipped and keep going.”

…

Somehow, you think you might be misremembering the quote.

04:32 AM

You now know what the quote actually was. You also watched several episodes for that new show on unsolved killings. Creepy how so many of them are happening around where you live.

Somewhere between the fourth episode and your second midnight snack, weariness sneaks up on you. It’s a whole hour later until you acknowledge it and tell yourself that you are going to sleep by your own force of will.

It’s fine though. Nothing some coffee tomorrow can’t fix. You’ll tough it out and shift your sleep rhythm back to normal.

You still got tomorrow.

Leaning back into your pillow, you sigh as you let your body relax, loosening every sinew, every fiber of muscle, ignoring the sudden weight of your cat resting on your chest and its deep, rumbling chortle.

Good night feeble human. Tomorrow will be another day of service upon the rising of the dawn.

Blissfully, you drift off. Wasn’t a great day but you did something right.

If nothing else, your cat still loves you.