Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1906-10-09
THE MASTER VICE.
As Such ls Proerastination Described
BY a Confessed Victim.

BY q Confessed Victim.
1.-The bane of my existence" said the
procrastinating man, has been my
habit of putting things of. never
do today what 1 can put off till to-
morrow.
THE result is that I am always put
ting things off and never doing any
more than Is necessary for my current
daily hand to mouth support; and SO,
as the saying is, never have anything.
i am not independent, but always de-
pendent upon somebody else for the
work that will enable me to live, and
so 1 can never say my soul ia my own.
must do the work am set to do by
some stronger man. whether like 1t
or not, and so I plod along, just get
ting through, while the man who col
lars things gets on.
"Of late years as 1 have come to
realize it's evil effects and the enor-
nous difficulty Of overcoming 1t. have
come to think that the master vice Of
all is procrastination. And coming to
think thus has disturbed me little,
because I have to give up an original
ly preconceived and long cherished
notion.
81 had long held that the most near
ly ineradicable of personal vices was
gambling, but now 1 thought the most
difficult Of all vices to cure oneself OF
was that of procrastination. Was I
wrong then? And could 1t be that l
was wrong now?
This, as I say. disturbed me a lit
tie; but now on this point rest quite
easy. For have discovered, contra
dictory as this, at first thought, might
seem, have discovered that / was
right then and that 1 am right now.
For now / discovered that the vice
of gambling is but another phase OF,
or at least the outcrop of, that Of pro-
crastination. The great majority of
those given over to gambling hope to
get something for nothing; they hope
to get money without effort. They put
off from day to day the hard, unflinch-
ing work that would give them sure
thing, without chances, on the race OF
life, and make Just enough to indulge
their vice and their vain hopes.
80 gambling Is really but form, or
outcome, Of the vice Of procrastination.
And by the same line Of reasoning 1
suppose we might say the same Of
which is essentially a
vice; we put things on
today, today we will drink; we will
work tomorrow.
"And don't know but what we
should find that every iii proceeds from
the vice of procrastination; and so
this, which might seem but form Of
laziness, is really the master vice;
and I am one Of its most closely bound
victims. / don't drink, and ! don't
gamble; but have got the fatal habit
Of putting things off.
Inertia, dullness, lack Of power
from want of exercise, come from it
the procrastinating man Is always at
the same dead low level. He Is always
going to do something, never doing
it; just pulling through with the work
he has to do. and gaining correspond
lngly small rewards. He never knows
the JOY Of doing things nor gathers in
it's profits, but habit bound, he settles
down in lifelong slavery.
"And I am one Of those victims!
I do rouse up and do
out Of my set routine, and
in the accomplishing Of some rugged
task that thus take up find a great
new JOY and pride; and am going to
keep this up; but next day l sink to
the old level again. and stay there; 1t
is so much easier to put things on
than to do things, and this, the trunk
bad habit Of which all others are but
is so deep rooted.
But 1 am not without hope. I have
looped off those branches Of which l
spoke. and I am prying, prying, around
the roots Of the trunk"