By Jillian French – News Editor

Does that make any sense? Let me start over.

As a well-practiced procrastinator, starting the assignment is always the hard part. No matter how many people tell me to “make a list!” or “break your work into chunks!” I still find myself struggling to sit down and dive into work. Instead, I sit on my bed watching New Girl and wait for the “perfect time” to start my essay, because it would be simply scandalous to start work at 3:57. Surely at 4:00 precisely, God will strike me with divine inspiration on Chaucerian poetry, and then finally (finally) I can begin the essay.

Somewhat predictably, perhaps because God has more important things to do, 4:00 rolls around without a whisper of divine inspiration. For my part, I am sitting in my bed at 4:01, mentally amending my schedule to begin writing at 4:30 and restarting the whole cycle. Throughout my entire school career, I have sabotaged myself by waiting for the “perfect time” to start work when no such time exists.

Part of this struggle is just feeling inadequate. I often feel like I don’t know enough to even start the research on a paper, much less the writing. When that happens, it’s easy to push off the work until I feel equipped to start. The problem here is that this mentality extends beyond schoolwork into most of my life. With schoolwork, I’m given a deadline. No matter how sloppy the work is, it gets handed in. With bigger goals, there’s no deadline: exercising, traveling, writing, reading … These goals get pushed aside to an indeterminate time when I feel more ready. Of course, I rarely end up feeling ready, and besides, most stuff worth doing will never have you feeling fully equipped anyway.

My advice (however unqualified I am to offer it) is to get comfortable with being bad at stuff. Start writing the paper even though you feel lost, and be okay with the first draft being awful. Go to the gym and ask questions, even if they’re stupid. Apply for jobs you’re not fully qualified for – if Trump landed the White House (again?), you’re more than qualified to tackle that internship. Most of life is just taking a stab at something and seeing what happens. I joined the military when I was seventeen, right before coming to Bishop’s. That’s not a decision I was qualified to make, equipped to handle, or generally ready for. It’s also not a decision I regret. If I had waited until I was ready, that moment wouldn’t have come, and I’d be kicking myself for not trying a career I wanted to pursue.

This conversation always comes up around New Year’s. Don’t get me wrong, I love the fun New Year’s resolutions (this year, mine is to eat more soup). But the “New Year, New Me” mantra just doesn’t work for me. No matter how much pressure we put on ourselves to get it right – to change our habits, organize our lives, and be better – the momentum of the New Year often falls short, as resolutions are abandoned within weeks or days. Why put pressure on 2025 to feel like the “perfect time” to start? At a New Year’s Day party this year, a friend told me he slept through New Year’s Eve: his resolution was to go to sleep earlier, and he figured he’d get a head start. I think he’s kind of a genius for that: why wait until January when you can start in December?

So, stop waiting for a perfect time to do something and just do it now. Go to the gym even though it closes in twenty minutes. Write an article for The Campus. Join the Navy (for legal reasons, this article is not military propaganda). Stop waiting for 4:00 and just start the essay at 3:57.