The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-09-30
THE MASTER
AZ Such II PrOcrastinatiOn Described by
Confessed Victim.

~ ~ =
Confessed Victim.
The bane Of my existence said the
proorastjnating man, has been my habit
OF putting things OF. l never do to-day
what / can put OF till tomorrow.
! The result is that 1 am always putting
things on and never doing any more than
is necessary for my current daily hand to
mouth support; and so, as the saying is,
l never have anything. l am not indie
pendent, but always dependent upon some
body else for the work that will enable
me to live, and so I can never say my soul
is my own. l must do the work 1 am set
TO do by some stronger man, whether
like il or not, and 10 l plod along, just get
ting through, while the man who collars
things gets on.
"Of late years as l have come 10 realize
its evil effects and the enormous dificult v
OF overcoming il l lave come to think that
h master vice OF all is procrastination.
And coming to think thus has disturbed me
a little, because l lave to give up an orig
inRlly ~preconceived and long cherished
notion.
Il had long held that the most nearly
~ineradicable Of personal vices was gambling,
but now l thought the most difficult Of all
vices to cure oneself of was that Of pro-
~crastination. Was l wrong then? And
could IL he that ! was wrong now?
This, as l say, disturbed me a little;
but now on this point l rest quite easy.
For i have discovered, contradictory as
this, at first thought, might seem, I have
discovered that l was right then and that
/ am right now.
For now I discover that the vice of
gambling is but another phase of, or at least
the outcrop Of, that Of procrastination
The great majority of those given over to
gambling hope to get something for nothing;
thev hope to get money without effort.
They put OF from day to day the hard.
~unhinching work hat would give them a
sure thing, without chances, on the race Of
life. and make just enough to indulge their
vice and their vain hopes.
s gambling is really but a form. or out
come. OF the vice Of procrastination. And
by the same line Of reasoning l suppose we
might gay the same OF drunkenness, which
is essentially a procrastinatinR vice; we put
things of to-day, to-day we will drink:
we will work tomorrow.
And / don't know but what we should
find that every i'll proceeds from the vice Of
pr-Ocrastination; and 30 this, wi ich might
seem but a form of l~aziness, ia really the
master vice; and ! am one of its most closely
bound victims. l don't drink, and / don't
gamble; but l have got the fatal habit of
putting things of.
Inertia, dullness, ack Of power from
want Of exercise, come from 1.-THE procras-
tinating man is always at the same dead
low level. He is always going to do some
thing, never doing ii; just pulling through
with h work he has TODD, and gaining CORE
spondingly 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 l am one OF those victimsl DC
~casionally i 10 rouse up and do something
out Of my set routine, and in the ACCOMPLISH
ing OF some rugged task that I thus AXE
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;
IL is so much easier to put things on than
to do things, and this. the trunk bad habit
Of which all others are but branches, is so
deep rooted.
But l am not without hope. I ave
Topped OF those branches OF which l spoke.
and am prying. prying, around the roots
OF h trunk