Putting things off. It's wonderful, isn't it? If you don't feel like doing something quite yet, you just postpone it and get on with doing something more fun. Then, when a deadline looms, you get to flog yourself to death, usually to keep the wheels of capitalism greased. Doing this too often invariably leads to throwing yourself between the gears in a vain effort to halt the machine, but despite your best efforts, your wimpy frail body is no match for the Corporation, the immortal person who keeps on going. Ha ha, look, your eyeball just bounced off the wall! Let's send that in to You've Been Framed and make even more profit.
Labour laws have made this kind of thing rather impossible to do physically, but the practice is still alive and well mentally. There were career fairs at university today - all your favourite consultancy companies plus PricewaterhouseCoopers, bartering for your soul in exchange for lots of money. Look forward to what you'll get when you graduate! Long hours playing with imaginary numbers in various firms' bank accounts, just so you can get some imaginary numbers in your bank account; some of which you'll spend on feeding your snivelling spoilt kids with fast food, replete with imaginary nutritional value, but more often going to invest in imaginary tracker funds so you can get even bigger imaginary numbers. Then you can go home to your wife, your feelings for each other imaginary, and later making (what can only rightly be called) imaginary love. At least your car is real, but its worth is pretty damn imaginary. Repeat for years until you start to wish your life itself is imaginary.
If they remade It's a Wonderful Life today, it would probably star a hedge fund manager who gets shown round the world, looking at all the ever-so-slightly-happier faces everywhere. Nobody minds. You were shouting at the screen for him to top himself long before he stuck his head in the oven. Bet you'd eat it afterwards.
Anyway, let me pretend my digression actually had a point rather than just being a cathartic rant, and suggest that procrastination is like taking a loan of time. You'll have to pay it back one day. With that in mind, will there ever be a time crunch, triggered by too many lazy buggers sitting on their arse watching Corrie and playing Xbox? Surely it's only a matter of time.
Labour laws have made this kind of thing rather impossible to do physically, but the practice is still alive and well mentally. There were career fairs at university today - all your favourite consultancy companies plus PricewaterhouseCoopers, bartering for your soul in exchange for lots of money. Look forward to what you'll get when you graduate! Long hours playing with imaginary numbers in various firms' bank accounts, just so you can get some imaginary numbers in your bank account; some of which you'll spend on feeding your snivelling spoilt kids with fast food, replete with imaginary nutritional value, but more often going to invest in imaginary tracker funds so you can get even bigger imaginary numbers. Then you can go home to your wife, your feelings for each other imaginary, and later making (what can only rightly be called) imaginary love. At least your car is real, but its worth is pretty damn imaginary. Repeat for years until you start to wish your life itself is imaginary.
If they remade It's a Wonderful Life today, it would probably star a hedge fund manager who gets shown round the world, looking at all the ever-so-slightly-happier faces everywhere. Nobody minds. You were shouting at the screen for him to top himself long before he stuck his head in the oven. Bet you'd eat it afterwards.
Anyway, let me pretend my digression actually had a point rather than just being a cathartic rant, and suggest that procrastination is like taking a loan of time. You'll have to pay it back one day. With that in mind, will there ever be a time crunch, triggered by too many lazy buggers sitting on their arse watching Corrie and playing Xbox? Surely it's only a matter of time.
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