You don’t leave things until the last minute because you like doing it. It’s because you’re afraid of not doing the work perfectly, of confronting the possibility of your own failure.

You beat yourself up for not starting. You see the stress set in, into your shoulders, into your skin. And feel stuck. You try to coax yourself into starting but can’t.

Nothing works. No amount of exhortation, no threats, no reminders of consequences. The body refuses to do the work.

Until it must, until, if you’re lucky, it can’t evade responsibility any longer. And then when the work is done you can hardly look at it. Sometimes you glance at it and are surprised that it is passable, good enough, maybe good even. You didn’t expect this.

But nothing happens. It is not perfect. But nothing happens. You breathe, you are freed of the oppressive condition that had taken over you. And you wait until it comes back again. The cycle repeats itself. You survive, less than perfect, never good enough.