Mark Twain, the famous American writer born in November of 1835, was known for his many novels including Tom Sawyer, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and The Prince and the Pauper.  He was a strong supporter of civil rights and also of women’s suffrage. Twain is sometimes confused with “Colonel Sanders” because of his white hair and smart mustache, but I can assure you, Mark Twain never made a living out of fried chicken! Twain died in 1910 of heart failure and was buried in Elmira, New York.

Procrastination: “the action of delaying or postponing something.” We’ve all been guilty of procrastination. Schoolwork, chores, work assignments, cooking dinner, laundry; these are some of the many things that are easy to put off until later. To the human brain, it may sometimes seem that if we put something off long enough, we won’t have to do it. Unfortunately, this is not how it actually works. We put it off, and put it off, until it’s the last minute and we find ourselves scrambling to get it all done. It’s a pretty horrible feeling, one that I know all too well.

When we postpone something for too long, we end up rushing, not doing the job right, and sometimes not even finishing it at all. Although procrastination is much easier to choose at first, it makes things twice as hard for us later.

As Twain’s wise words suggest, the best way to get ahead is by just “starting.” If it’s something we know we have to do, we might as well get started, and the sooner it will be finished. Even if we don’t have time to finish it all in one sitting, we just have to start.

If there is something that you’ve been putting off this week, I am here to encourage you to begin today! It probably won’t be as bad as it seems. All you have to do is begin, and so I am not being hypocritical, I, myself, will also be starting something that I have been putting off. I will be working on a sewing project that is due in a week and will try my best to leave procrastination out of the picture, before it’s too late and I’m threading bobbins at 4am. . . again!

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Is there something that you’ve been putting off?

Do you have any advice to eliminate procrastination?

Have you read any books by Mark Twain?

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Megan Joy