The Fight Against Procrastination

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Deacon Kosloskus is a writer at The Jaded Observer. He loves God, his family, and his country. He is a college freshman, interested in politics, art, and film.

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I see more and more young men today who are willing to let the momentum of their lives completely evaporate. There are many challenges that young men face today, especially in a world that pushes them to abandon their Christian values for secularism. Christianity and its message are under attack. Young men graduating from high school and entering college, especially Gen Z, are under intense pressure from the modern world to embrace an individualistic, consumerist lifestyle. One consequence of this is the epidemic of procrastination.

Procrastination is the intentional delay of work in one’s life. Procrastination has had some role in almost every young man’s life; anyone who knows a college student has seen this firsthand. Procrastination will derail your life and starve your soul. Not only does it sap the time from your day, but it also leaves a foul-tasting shame in its wake. I think it’s fair to say that no one ever feels good after doom-scrolling.

Young men need to be more aware of exactly how intentionally devoid of sustenance these apps really are. This is not an accident; procrastination does not come from nowhere. Social media companies create their platforms to take advantage of you as often as possible. Their algorithms are made to keep you on their platform, mindlessly seeking to fill an unnamed void. They want you hooked up to the social media machine like Neo in the Matrix. Your time is their sustenance, an idle life is their profit.

Falling into a cycle of procrastination and shame destroys a young man's drive. They ( the companies) want him to feel like a failure. You can’t truly fulfill your manly obligations to society until you set your mind in order. A young man's duty is to bring order to the world, to provide for his family, and to build a strong society. This message is sometimes lost when young men are presented with a false dichotomy: they are either an unstoppable force like David Goggins or Andrew Tate, who effortlessly charge through life as though it were nothing, or they are like dirt, unable to create or conquer because they are stuck on the couch.

Figures like Tate tell young men that if they are not millionaires by the age of twenty-five, then they will amount to nothing. Figures like Goggins demonstrate an ill-placed drive; they often only do things for personal challenge, not because they fulfill the previously mentioned duties of a man. When the standard is something unrealistic or superficial, young men are scared away from ever trying at all.

Drive is about consistency and intentionality, not going as hard as you can all the time. Drive is intentionally moving towards a specific vision for your life. Sometimes, this means getting up early to get work done. Other times, this requires setting aside time to rest and recharge. After all, anyone who works out knows that growth happens during rest. Taking moments of rest does not make you a weak man. The real problem occurs when you don’t value your own time well. There is a dreadful feeling of shame when social media steals your time. This very same shame leads you right back to social media, where you try to escape it by endlessly scrolling through garbage and forgetting your own self-awareness.

So does this cycle just destroy the lives of young men? Do young men become so stuck in their cycle of procrastination that they never build anything for themselves, others, or their country? Some young men are seeing these destructive habits for what they truly are. A motivated minority of young men are taking action to reclaim their lives from procrastination and social media.

Using apps that block specific social media sites and limit screen time is becoming more popular as more young men desire to make changes in their lives. We are starting to realize that no one is coming to save us; it's up to us to figure it out. No matter how evil or brutal modern life is, this is the world we have inherited. We must take large-scale action soon, otherwise we will end up in a world devoid of purpose. 

If you aren’t seeing this drive in your own life, what can you do? Limiting social media is helpful, but this is not what makes a driven young man. It is the opposite; by becoming a driven young man, you will start to limit the place of social media in your life. Surround yourself with other young men and seek older, more principled men who can teach you and support you as you grow. This is the essence of drive.