Free Essay On Exploration Paper 1

As far back as I can remember, I have always been a female who always did the right thing when I was told to and sometimes even when I was not told to. When there was work to be done then I put everything on hold until that work was done, and it gave me a sense of accomplishment after the job was done. I have always been a huge believer in work first and play later, I never ever did it the other way around because I always knew that the consequences of play before work was severe. The thing is, I love to play video games. No matter what time of the day it is whether it was day, noon or night, I always sat down in front of my games and made time for them no matter what. Playing video games are a big part of my personality because since I have been playing video games for so long, the hobby is something that I personally love to do when I have the opportunity to do so which I always made time to do. I have always been a firm believer in the fact that despite whatever a person has going on in their lives, if they are video gamers then making time to play their games is important; it is for me and I have made that my personal philosophy over the years. However, last year I started getting into writing and I have written quite a few pieces on several things such as what game is hot, what game is not, why one game system is better than the other to name a few. I have gotten a lot of compliments on my writing, and how I have a knack as well as the ability to produce great works; I was even informed that I could be making money off my writing. Well, playing video games is all fine and good, but the problem was that I was spending too much time playing video games. I procrastinated writing until I beat a certain game or whatever game that I was working on, I would always tell myself quoting the following “I am going to beat this game before I start up writing again, it is no love lost because I have all the time in the world” Ironically, I never had problems with procrastination before. After discovering that I can potentially use my expert writing ability to make money, I got overindulgent on spending time playing video games and spending time honing my writing abilities less. This has caused me great discomfort because I sometimes sit around in the dark realms of my mind, and think about everything that I could have in my possession right now such as my own car, car insurance paid off for at least 6 months, work toward saving up for my own place, buying furniture for my own place; among many other things. I say to myself sometimes that I wish I had my own place and car, but I also think more about the importance of playing video games so I do not forget the knowledge that I have gained playing the games I do have. Interesting enough, I have never had a problem doing the right thing, but I have a tendency to try to find a way to do the right thing and have my way at the same time. Being a tenacious female who has always sacrificed whatever it took to do the right thing, I felt that maybe the powers above owed me a little for always staying on the straight and narrow. Oddly enough, despite the discomfort I feel about not having the things that my heart desires, I make not having those desires fulfilled go away when I sit down and play video games. Most people my age would already have the aforementioned things, and feel a huge sense of accomplishment in having those things because they did not procrastinate about acquiring them. Prioritizing and giving something of equal value is the key to getting anything whether it is your own car or place, I would think about how my procrastination has practically robbed me of the very things that would make me feel like my life is complete and worthwhile. I always felt strongly about never procrastinating about doing things that I know would propel my life forward, but knowing that I can make money off my writing has put me in a mental state of arrogance and neglect. To me, I felt like as long as I have something that people want, my future is secured and my potential to make a lot of money off my abilities is absolute and guaranteed. It is like I do not feel that I have to be in a rush to use something I am never going to lose.
The presenting problem is procrastination in the eye of doing the most important thing last, and doing the least important thing first. Prioritizing is another way of describing the problem, video gaming is not just a hobby, it is a way of life and an aspect of my life that I would not sacrifice for anything. The problem started when I first got into playing video games at the age of 9, I would always play video games for a long period of time then do whatever important task after I got bored with playing video games. From the age of nine, I would always play video games before I did anything else. The games I would play would keep me hooked for hours and when I felt like I was getting bored, I would make excuses about not turning off the game system for a little while. To me, playing video games took precedence over everything in my life, homework, chores, errands, time with friends, bonding with the elements i.e. playing outside; the list goes on and on. Looking back, I feel like putting my video games first has paralyzed my ability to focus on important tasks first. It is because of this paralysis that I cannot bring myself to find the means to focus on getting my own place, and making the necessary calls to the publishers about hiring me to write their manuscripts involving different things such as articles, newspaper articles etc. By the time I was in high school, I was playing video games more than I ever was because keeping up with the current gaming trend was my everything and I never not made it my life’s work to make time to play video games when I did not have the time. When I graduated from high school, I got a job and my powers of procrastination worsened. I always went to work, but I always got there 2 to 3 minutes late every single day because I would want to get to a certain stage before I discontinued the game. Procrastination has been the downfall of my family for generations, it all started with my father who was a big procrastinator. Whenever he had work to do, he would always put it off until he was ready or felt ready to do it. My dad would always put time limits on the things that he had to do, but when it came to something that he wanted to do then he would always do it right away; any chores that he had to do would always wait until 2:00pm. For example, when he had to mow the lawn, he would always put it off until 2:00pm. There were times where he would put off cutting the grass for hours because he would fall asleep in front of the television, and he would further put off cutting the grass until the next day. Being only 16 years old at the time he was doing this, I thought this behavior was normal and did not think to question why he would procrastinate the way that he did. I mean, here I am a 16 year old questioning her 38 year old father as to why he is procrastinating on doing something that needed to be done immediately. There would be times when I would even ask my father to take me somewhere I really needed to go, and he would procrastinate then as well. It is not a surprise that I would adopt this behavior because my father was a procrastinator, my younger sister inherited being a procrastinator from our father. When it came down to me, it got to the point where I would put off doing something for 5 minutes. Once those five minutes were up, I would put the task off for another 5 minutes then I would put it off for 10 minutes at that time. For example, if I had to go to the store for a particular item, and something I wanted to see on television was on then I would wait to leave for the store once I saw what I wanted to see. It was like that when it came to music as well, if I heard a song that I love then I would put off doing whatever I am doing in the moment to listen to that song. There would be times where I would justify my procrastination, and for a while I thought that doing that I did not have to answer to anyone about why I was choosing to wait on doing something that should have been done yesterday. I cannot say that being a procrastinator has been a huge part of my life, but I can say that it has caused a lot of problems for me and the things that I want to obtain; things that I feel I should already have. Ironically, I was always taught as a kid that procrastination carried a heavy penalty and it was always enough to keep me from procrastinating about doing anything.
I would have to say that the procrastination problem has affected my life in various ways, ways that I cannot stand to fathom sometimes. For one, the problem has affected my life in the regard that I do not have my own car to be able to go where I would like to go such as going to my husband’s grandfather’s house so Kendrick could see his great grandfather. Having Kendrick around positive role models means everything to me, being able to spend that time over there for a lengthy period of time would be possible if I had my own car. Another way that this problem has affected my life can be described by my living situation, I still live with my mother and my husband, me and Kendrick all have to share one room. Granted, the room is a decent size, but ultimately too small for me and my growing family. This procrastination has affected my life to the point that not having my own place has caused, in some cases, irreprehensible damage to my present living situation. Having a place with more space and breathing room would be a definite plus, I miss having my own place. This problem has affected my life in the aspect that I feel like I cannot put anything important before my video gaming because I am always going to be a slave to giving my video games the time they want. Even when I was tired and wanting to go to bed, I would put that off by staying up as long as it took for me to get to the part that I wanted to be satisfied with stopping at. For example, it would be 4:32 am and I am playing one of my favorite games. I get to a point where there is a save point where I can stop, and save my game then turn it off. However, I will procrastinate on going to bed to stay up longer in order to get to the part of the game where I would be satisfied with stopping at. As previously mentioned, I procrastinate doing things when I play video games because playing that game takes precedence over all else. Another example, I would be playing an RPG like Chrono Trigger and I am close to getting to the Kingdom of Zeal, I would be on the middle part of the Prehistoric era. I would procrastinate doing everything else until I got to Zeal. For me, getting to the magical kingdom of Zeal meant that everything was right in the world and I can now get on with my life. Procrastination has impacted my life in the aspect that I feel it is mandatory to put even the most demanding job on hold until I was ready to stop playing video game long enough to do that or those demanding jobs. This went on for quite some time, I even did this when it came down to cutting the grass too which goes to show the old adage, the apple does not fall far from the tree. Even though this problem has caused havoc in several areas of my life, it just seems so much easier to just ignore the problem. To me, I felt like if I just ignore the problem most times, it will eventually go away and I can feel free of it. However, this attitude in itself was self-destructive because I feel like no matter what I do to try to put my video game playing off until everything else was finished, I felt like I could not. The examples pretty much tell the story of how I was ruled by procrastination because nothing was allowed to come across my desk so to speak until I was ready to stop playing video games, I often left bad impressions on the people who counted on me to do certain things for them. Overtime, I felt like this affected my overall judgment on how to behave like a normal adult because procrastination is what makes teenagers and preadolescents. Being a grown woman, I felt like it was really immature of me to let myself be ruled by my procrastination problem which was at a point, out of control. I was always in control of making the meals around the house, and it got to the point where my procrastination had me eating dinner late and serving the people inside my home dinner late as well. Ultimately, procrastination has been my undoing in many situations in my life where immediate action that should have been taken, wasn’t. It reflected badly on me because of my lack of maturity to do something as simple as putting a pizza in the oven for 20 minutes, procrastination is one of the worst things that a person can give in to; it makes a person sluggish and lazy not to mention put other things that are not as important first which no one should do.
It is true that procrastination was a big part of my life and the things that I did in it, procrastination was a problem that I particularly did not see a way out of. However, I did try different things in order to resolve the problem on my own because I did not really see this being a psychiatrist problem, it was more like a personal problem; a family history problem that needed to be eliminated. One of the relevant ways that I went about resolving the problem is by doing the opposite of what I was doing before, I was forcing myself to stop procrastinating and putting my video games first. For example, I would get to a part of the game that I did not mind being at. Next, I would play a mental trick on my mind in the form of convincing myself that I hated the part of the level that I was on so I would in turn stop the game and would not go back to it for several hours. Doing this, I felt like I finally discovered a way to keep my procrastination problem in check. I did this when it came to everything I did where procrastination could play a part in stopping me from doing that particular task. As previously mentioned, I procrastinated on doing any kind of writing until I played whatever game I was working on and missed out on some really good talent honing opportunities that would allow me to better provide for my family. However, since playing that mental trick on my mind, I was able to reopen and walk through doors that I thought would be closed to me forever. Another way I conquered the procrastination problem was I would stop and ask myself, do I really want to do this right now or should I be writing, and honing my writing abilities. Being the logically woman I am, I would always go the logical route which was basically to write and hone my writing skills so I can be ready for any client that wanted to borrow my writing abilities for an article etc. Interesting enough, the easiest ways that I found to conquer my procrastination was to make the level I stopped on seem less appealing than it really was. For example, whenever I played Onimusha 3: Demon Siege, I would stop at the dock area of Sakai Village; I like that part of the level in small doses which means that it was easy for me to turn my back to that part of the game where I did not want to go on. Thereby eliminating the possibility of procrastination or even the possibility of acknowledging any concept of procrastination, the way I saw it was that if I do not bring myself to sit down in one spot long enough to play that section of the game then I will not be tempted to play that part of the level. Giving into procrastination when you are presented with the opportunity will most certainly enable a person to put everything on hold just to do what they have been doing, but if a person were to make that something they want to do less appealing then giving in will not be a cause of concern. I even came up with another way of conquering my procrastination, I would put myself on a time limit. I would write for 2 hours then play video games and spend time with my husband & son for 2 hours. Doing this, there is no room for procrastination or giving into it because as I previously illustrated, it is all about keeping on the move. I always thought that if I procrastinated about doing the important things such as homework or writing or even taking out the trash then I would eventually grow up out of doing it. What I failed to realize is that it took a lot more than what I was doing in order to conquer the procrastination problem, I thought I would try a little psychiatry and I talked to an old psychiatrist friend of mine who told me exactly what I needed to hear. This motivated me even more to focus on my writing more and playing video games less, at the end of the day I realized that video gaming around the clock while procrastinating my writing will only keep me happy for a little while. However, I would be unhappy in the long term because I will be 1 year older and still living at home with no car or place of my own. The current status of the problem in my life right now is that the problem is non-existent, I can get up and walk away from my game system at any time. I am no longer bound to my procrastination, and I make more of an effort to stop playing video games long enough to do all of the important things that need to be done such as mowing the lawn in the early morning instead of doing it in the late afternoon. I put all of my time into playing video games at night after my son goes to bed, and spending the day doing other things like mowing the lawn, taking my son and husband outside to spend family time together etc. It just feels great to finally break the chains of procrastination. The main approach that I would want the helper to employ is the silence is golden method of counseling, being able to say everything on my mind while it is still fresh is the main thing I love about getting counseling because the counselor listens instead of offering advice at every turn. In conclusion, procrastination is a very ugly little habit that can keep someone from fully living their life to the extreme and it is important that people find the value of living their lives amidst whatever busy schedule they have because life is too short to let procrastination run it.