It's not like differentiating procrastination with laziness has any scientific backing, other than the observation that they are both known as wasted time without productivity return. The research saw a correlation between thrifty people and well-adjusted countries being thrifty. This assumption was found through the extension of the research into procrastination.
Procrastination has been defined and applied in different ways at different times. It's interesting to see how fundamentally the word has been defined and applied. In early ancient times, the word procrastination had a negative connotation. In the 19th century, it was defined as wasting time idly in doing nothing. In the 80s it became a negative word to be associated with laziness. But in the past thirty years, the word is losing that negative connotation. Time dedicated to productive activities is more important than time spent doing nothing.
So the story today is of a relative of mine who recently moved overseas. I am more of a recluse, preferring to live alone in a small apartment than to live in a big house as he did with his family back home. My relative was not happy about this. He liked to have his family around him while he was alone. Also In his memory, he had been studying for most of his life. He retained a scholarship at Yale University for musical composition. He played and studied music extensively. Maybe this affected him in a way that he considered that a big house with a massive library was more productive than the small apartment I was living in.
He would have me call him every now and then. I was his backup plan if his family were not around. I would be his calling back home. In most cases, I would be at one of the internet hangouts or coffee shops. His voice was warm and inviting to me.
But in one of my next conversations, I found him oddly quiet. I asked him if everything was well at home. He said that he had been bored. He said that he had not been very productive. He saw my dog sleeping. He wanted to comfort him. He petted the dog and stroked him with a soft hand. He said 'I was just waiting for the right moment to call you.' What was the right moment? I asked. 'To tell you about my day,' he said in complete silence. It was not anything I had said or made him say. He was not holding my phone. He had not even called me on the phone. He was just waiting. Then he called and left a message saying "I am bored."
This early start to such a boring day being told about was what made me curious. He said he was waiting for the day to pass. He said he was waiting for me to come home. He said he was waiting for the sun to go down and the moon to come up.
I asked myself what was going on with him? He said he had been out with his kids earlier. When I asked him how they were, he said his son was fine. He was glad because he had gotten into a good university. My relative told me that it was weird because as the day progressed his daughter had written a few more notes in her diary about him and how she felt about him. It made her happy but at the same time sad that she loved her father so much that she would write about it in a diary. She had been getting along well with her dad. He was the best father ever.
The moon was out and the sun was setting and my relative was bored. He said he saw time hanging on his hands. He had watched the time go by as he waited for me to call him back home. The moon went down and the sun came up. The sky changed colors, from blue to red to orange-ish sunset colors, which my relative thought looked nice together with the moonlight and crescent colors of stars in an open sky at night.
My relative said that he was not going to call me anymore. He had written a few more songs about his love for his son and daughter. Then he recorded them all on his smartphone, put them on a flash drive, and labeled it in the name of his son. Then he went back to his room. He said he would not watch TV. He was not going to answer the phone. He was just going to wait for me to call him back home.
He said he had been waiting for 19 hours already when I called him in the morning after hearing his voice on the phone and asked him if he had settled his daily routine down. He said 'yes.' So I asked him what happened next? My relative did not say anything at first. Then he said 'I was just waiting for you to call.'
'What? Why don't you go back to your family? Why were you waiting for me?' I asked my relative in a puzzled voice. He was silent and said he was not talking. He had just been waiting for me to call him.
'What really made you call me?' I asked my relative. 'I just wanted you to call me. I am fine. I had a great day with my kids and everything was okay. I just wanted you to call me.' Really? Just waiting for me to call? Did he think that he could get closer to me if he waited patiently?
He was not saying anything at first. Then he said, 'I was just waiting for you.' What? Would he not even return my calls before this? What did this mean about his love for me as a person and what did it mean about how much he loved me as a friend? How did that work out in his own mind if it really meant nothing in reality because I would never call him without him calling first himself? He said 'I have already told you that. I think you will understand why I don't want to go back to my family right now.'
I did not call my relative anymore after that. I just let him go back to his family. I thought he should go back to them and see if they could help him sort out the mess in his mind or if he should get some professional help, and seek a cure for the pain from his heart that was hurting him so much. Was it really nothing but a joke on him?
My relative said he was okay when I asked about the things happening with him. He said he was fine and had been doing well through it all. I did not believe him. I did not know what to say to him. What could I say? How could I tell him that he had got more messed up than ever before? I thought it had become a big deal to him, although there was no evidence that his life was on the line or that any horrible situation had happened at all.
I asked my relative if he really thought he could get close to me on the phone while he waited for me in silence. He said 'yes. Why not?' I thought that was not a good idea. We were expected to speak on the phone all the time when I was able to call him. Why should I do that if he was not there and if he would never come back?
Ultimately, we did not really talk much during the whole time when we were supposed to be together. He just spoke for a bit before he would go silent again, while he waited for my phone call. It made me wonder whether he had already decided it was over with us and started to sever our relationship again when I talked on the phone with him. As far as I knew back then, we were still very much together until this distant relative called me at that moment.
I felt it was quite scary that he was trying to say goodbye to me on the phone, while he was not even able to manage a proper farewell. What I did not know at the time was that he played the same game with other family members as well. He got in touch with them and said some things before finally ending the relationship with each of them. It did not take long for my distant relative to come up with another excuse for why he needed to cut off our relationship again. By the time I put down the phone, I felt it was over between us again, although we stayed together throughout our waking hours in June 1996 until most of July 1996.
Then, at the end of July 1996, he contacted me again by phone. He revealed to me that he had attempted suicide in June 1996. He told me how he had taken an overdose of painkillers which was probably meant to kill him. I was shocked to hear the news and consoled him for his troubles over the phone. I'm thinking if I had ignored his urges to delay things, and the thought of him just procrastinating things, things would've been in a different case. Things would've been gone out of hand and he could've been successful in his plan during that day. Until now, I'm quite thankful I managed to get along with procrastinating at a perfect time. Still puzzled ever since what would've happened afterward if I just ignored him and start being productive.
Blessed are you who managed to pull things through this article and let me share one of my relatives' stories.
