From Essays After Montaigne

'Recklesness is the vice contrarie unto curiosity,' towards which I am naturally inclined, aud wherein I have seen many men, so extremely plunged, that three or foure days after the receiving of letters which have been sent them, they have been found in their pockets yet unopened. I never opened any, not only of such as had beene committed to my keeping, but of such as by any fortune came to my hands. And I make a conscience standing neare some great person if mine eyes chance unawares to steale some knowledge of any letters of importance that he readeth. Never was man lesse inquisitive, or pryed lesse into other mens affaires than I.

My therapist won't allow me to call myself lazy. But my mother, descended of generations of good Protestants (though irreligious herself), raised me to believe that I am, and it's a self-perception that has become difficult to alter, for it's undeniable that I procrastinate. I went all the way through high school without once doing homework. I never skipped classes, though, because that would have required initiative. My perfect attendance, my memory, and my dispassionate detachment during tests are probably the only reasons I managed to do well enough to go on to college. And to this day, I will delay as long as possible the execution of tasks that I dread. I'm not inert. I read, I write, I code, but only as long as I enjoy it. If that's not laziness, what is it?

There has been one clear improvement in this area since I began therapy and psychoactive drugs: I have overcome the anxiety that often prevented me from engaging in any one of my preferred activities to the exclusion of the others. There would be whole weekends during which I would sit staring at the television because if I did one thing (say, write) then I couldn't do anything else (say, read or code). I would sit, doing nothing, believing that I was despicably lazy. But that wasn't laziness, it was neurosis. The Celexa that I now take is an antidepressant, but it can also help with anxiety. At the same time, therapy has helped me to no longer focus on every moment as something that by its passing brings me closer to death, as something worthy of being spent only in the best manner possible. I've learned to focus on the moment itself, and to be happy in the present in which I actually live. Together, medication and therapy have loosened the Gordian knot of my will enough that I can now at least engage in the pursuits that I enjoy; this Weblog, among other things, attests to that.

But I still pay bills late and take forever to clean up after myself. This isn't the result of any deadlock of the will, it's simple neglect. I've learned to reconcile myself to reality only when it's either enjoyable or inescapable, not when it's uninteresting and avoidable. I haven't grown up. More often than not, I suffer more by putting things off than I would by simply doing what I should when I should. And Montaigne is correct that these sorts of delays can be reckless, but it's not, in my case, a recklessness born of incuriosity. With all apologies to my therapist, it's born of laziness.