In Search of Perfection

I am a perfectionist. I love organizing and keeping everything in place. I clean out my cupboards every month, re-arrange my clothes and stack it properly. I need to have a pencil,sharpener, ruler, a red pen, a black pen, a blue pen and a highlighter in my pencil case at all times. I need to have matching hijabs for every abaya and matching jewellery and shoes for every dress, matching dupatta for every shalwaar kameez, mind you not a shade lighter or darker but the exact same which seems to irk my family and relatives as it creates a hassle when shopping in India.

I am a procrastinator. I submit my assignments the exact time its due and not a minute before. I watch all YouTube videos in my subscription feed and then watch recommendations, hop onto Instagram then Twitter and finally Facebook. Once I am done stalking and watching what everyone else is upto, I check my emails and then finally decide to get to the report that is due in 6 hours. Type the title, name and student number. Mind drifts and fingers shift to WordPress to read blog posts or to write one of my own.

So how does perfectionism and procrastination work mutually? According to a research conducted recently, perfectionism leads to procrastination. But if I am perfect, I wouldn’t procrastinate now would I? It is in the quest of perfection that we tend to procrastinate. We like to furnish and refurbish that essay to the point that words literally gleam out of the paper. We like to gain full marks for that test we have to study for and so we put off the hardcore studying to a later time when we can concentrate and give it all we got. We relax/procrastinate so we can get our mind in to the zone.

And hence I am writing this post instead of writing my reports that are due tomorrow. I have already done one (well almost) but the other giant report that has been sitting on my desk for the past one month worth 20% of my total grade is scaring me. I have to tackle it sooner or later (by sooner I mean now and by later I mean today).No matter what I do, the report is constantly at the back of my head reminding me of my future GPA, terrorizing me and not letting me sleep in peace the way an Indian nagging wife nags her husband the moment he steps into home after a long day at the office.

There is this tactic that I use when I start getting overwhelmed. I start imagining the peaceful tranquil moments I shall have once I am done. The joyful heart thrumming and humming within my body, the cerebellum and cerebrum of my brain partying away and the nerves that started to get tense when the lecturer handed in the assignment until the moment I handed it in,  finally unwinding and praising the Lord for the stress that I had put it in. That really works. I get motivated and bust out books and research articles and peruse through journals. I am in the zone. I start pumping information into my report like a scientist pumping chemicals into machine and arrive at such brilliant conclusions that would leave my lecturer proud. I start imagining my lecturer’s reaction and the moment he hands out my report to me with a smile so huge I can see which tooth he got root canal done. Even better, he calls me to the front of the class and announces what an asset I am to his class while telling the rest of the meh average class to reproduce the results of the brilliance that I am.

DIIINNGGG!!! Ooooh I got a notification on my phone breaking my reverie. I shall be right back 😛

*** Images from Google

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