Guest Post # 7 ~ The Next Monday Syndrome

Guest Blogger of the day is Pallavi Nayak. I've heard the Material Girl always mention good times and Pallavi in the same sentence. So we know for sure that she is a fun person with a large heart for friends and family. Pallavi is an advertising and branding professional and lives and works in Bombay.

In her own words, this is Pallavispeak for you...

I am Pallavi, I weigh more than 80 kilos and yes I have made peace with myself that my weight has become a part of my identity. Besides that I am an avid fan of the arts faculty maybe it be writing, music or craft. I see myself as an observor of life and I strongly belive that what makes me happy is that I have very few hang ups in life. 

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Being a material girl makes me indulgent and spoilt for choice. Thats leaves me missing out or pushing some critical plans to some never gonna happen future date. I call this regreatble yet speedinly common habit to procrastination, the Next Monday Syndrome.

The same syndrome that has delayed this post by 3 days. A famous line from Golmaal sums up this feeling even more succinctly…aaj ka kaam ka karo, kal ka kaam parson…itni jaldi kya ha bhaiyya jab jeena hai barson and why not, being proactive promises a good future while procrastination assures a great today, I say. Ah! The Next Monday Syndrome, I have lost multiple trips, movies and mostly my head over it. The one thing I have not lost because of this syndrome is my weight. 10 years of saying Next Monday I will start to exercise, that is 560 Mondays come and gone.  Worse, 560 Sundays stuffing myself with food with a hope that I will start the weight loss program the next day.

So while there are more scientific reasons that psychologists will dish out for the ‘Next Monday Syndrome’ here are some of conclusions that I have arrived at, defending the procrastinator…

1. You are an optimist: You are a strong believer of a brighter future ahead, you know that the sun will rise back tomorrow and you will be here to execute your plan tomorrow. You defiantly believe that the world will not end in 2012.
2. You have mastered the art of thinking: You have thought about it so much times that you have a very vivid almost realistic picture of the end goal in your head. So realistic that just the thought that you will do it makes you think that you have almost done it. Here people are talking about teleporting and virtual reality, so been there done that, Meh!
3. You play lawyer lawyer with yourself: My Lord, mere kaabil dost states that achieving the goal will lead to happiness, making happiness the ultimate goal and not achieving the goal. So if procrastination gives happiness then the ultimate goal is achieved. Defense rests its case, My Lord! 
4. You are cool and spontaneous: You are not one of those uncool people who plan everything. Who wants to be like these first benchers of life, they not have a plan but they actually painstakingly stick to it. You don’t let a plan take over your life. You are as free to do whatever you feel like today just like you did last Monday.
5. You are more busy than Justin Beiber : Last by not least, it comes down to a fact that no one can refute. There are only 24 hours in a day and you are only carrying the work load of the world on your strong shoulders. You have a demanding set of friends and a family. If only there were 25 hours in a day then you would have surely squeezed in time to achieve your goal. But even a rockstar like you cannot make that possible. Such is life what to do.

There are many more reasons but I will reserve them for some other time, maybe next Monday J