When people discuss the problems facing young people today, one topic that appears again and again is that of procrastination. Teachers, parents, and many other adults will say that today's teenagers are lazy because they put off doing schoolwork and chores until the last possible minute. They say that procrastination leads to sloppy work, and that young people should start early and dedicate the most amount of time they can to any task they do. Unfortunately, people who speak out against procrastination do not realize that efficiency can lead to bad things, while procrastinating can save time and money. In fact, being efficient can even cause nuclear war, so it is important to procrastinate as often as possible.
Procrastination is the habit of waiting until the last minute to get started on something. People can procrastinate by doing nothing at all, or they can procrastinate by doing other tasks which are not related to their work. This habit has probably been around for a very long time. In fact, it is possible that it even dates to before recorded history. Nobody will ever know for sure, because the people at that time were too busy hunting, farming, building pyramids, creating beautiful art, writing famous poems and novels, and doing various other things, and they never got around to writing about procrastination. In more recent history, procrastination has been viewed negatively by people in charge, who think that it is a waste of time and money.
One example of how people view procrastination might be when students turn in schoolwork at school. The teacher might praise a student who starts on his essay the moment it is assigned, and publicly shame a student who mentions that she still has not looked at the assignment the class period before it is due. This is foolish, because by procrastinating for so long, the student who starts late will be very focused on her task, while the student who starts early will easily get distracted and will not create as good an essay. Many famous writers and artists throughout history have used this as a strategy. Michelangelo, for example, was so good at procrastinating that he wanted to relax as long as possible while painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling, and even installed scaffolding that let him lie down on the job.
In the business world, employers and managers have even dimmer views on procrastination. In some extreme examples, people can even lose their jobs for not doing their work on time or well. Just as in the classroom, this focus on efficiency and timeliness is a mistake. Many business experts today recognize that the culture of a business, and not just the work it does, is important. By putting off their work and spending time at the water cooler sharing gossip, employees may miss deadlines but they will be much happier. When considering whether making money for a business is more important than people being happy, it is obvious that procrastination improves people's mood and creates a much better work environment.
The clearest example of how misguided people are about procrastination, however, comes when considering international politics and the military. By looking at historical time periods like the 1940s, it is clear that wars often start when people who want to kill others are efficient and organized. German people, for instance, often have a reputation as practical, and Hitler was responsible for the worst mass genocide in history. The Japanese, who are regarded as efficient, also caused many deaths in China. On the other hand, people from Hawaii, with a reputation for being easy-going and taking a relaxed view on things like being on time, have never started any major wars, if any at all.
With the increasingly complicated machines and weapons that we are able to build in the twenty-first century, being inefficient and creating as many delays as possible is more important than ever in preserving world peace. To understand this, one need only look at the arsenals of nuclear weapons available to the United States. Any new president who moves into the Oval Office will have access to these weapons, and if he feels threatened and is efficient he will realize it is much quicker to drop a nuclear bomb on an enemy country than to invade it or try to work issues out through diplomacy. However, because many other modern countries also have nuclear weapons, launching a missile at someone will cause them to retaliate. If they are as efficient as the American president, the world will quickly be destroyed by nuclear war. A president who procrastinates, on the other hand, would save the lives of millions because he would spend a lot of time thinking over other options, and would probably never get around to declaring war in the first place.
As can be seen from this essay, procrastination has been an important part of history in many cultures for a long time. Procrastination may even save the human species from destroying itself. Despite this, people today think that it is a bad thing and causes problems. At some point, it would be nice if someone got around to teaching people that procrastination is actually good. However, there are many benefits to procrastinating which have not been found yet, so it would probably be better to find as many benefits as possible before educating others. Although people should learn to accept procrastination as part of a healthy society, then, they might want to wait a while first.
Rationale
This essay shows that procrastination, far from being bad, is actually a good thing. Many historically important buildings and pieces of art would not have been created without procrastination. Procrastination can also improve student's grades and the culture of a business, making people happier and smarter. In some cases, procrastination can even save lives, because if everybody did things straight away we would all die due to nuclear war. We should all embrace procrastination as an important part of life and society.
