I hate myself for procrastinating.
I hate myself for not planning early enough.
I hate myself for getting comfortable with last minute preparations.
I hate myself for getting complacent with “barely passing” quality work.
I hate myself for knowing all of this and not doing anything to change my ways.
I had to take a 26-hour bus ride because of my procrastination!
Pepperdine University gave us a five day travel break from November 23rd-27th, and we had known about this since early summer. This means that I had more than three months to book flights and accommodations.
But I did not.
When I had free time before and after classes, I would go watch a movie on Netflix or YouTube. Whenever, I would set aside a specific amount of time to work on travel logistics, I always choose to listen to the voice in my head telling me that “I still have time”. Yes, I still have time, but that time cost a lot of money. If I had booked my flight three months ago, I would have had to only pay $200 to fly from Buenos Aires, Argentina to Santiago, Chile. But because I did not do so, I had to pay $180 for a 26-hour bus ride from Buenos Aires, Argentina to Santiago, Chile. I could have taken a two-hour plane if I had decided to book my ticket earlier, but I let procrastination get the better of me.
(More of my Chile trip on another blog post)
I remember telling myself that that will be the last time. “I will learn from my mistakes this time, and in the future, I will do a better job of planning.” But guess what?
Here I am stressed out about my winter break plans, or rather the lack of winter break plans.
If I had booked my flights before I came to Argentina, I would be paying about $1,300 to go home and come back, but now, I am spending $2,000 to go home for the holidays and then coming back.
I told myself that I will do a better job next time, but I did not because I never really accepted how much cognitive effort it takes to change a habit. It takes a lot. It takes a lot of self-evaluation, self-assessment, and holding myself accountable. Reflecting on it now makes me realize how much I lack of those qualities. But I am developing them here abroad. With the lack of familiarity, the lack of familial comfort, the lack of comfort in general is forcing me to always hold myself accountable for things that I can control. It saddens me to think that it takes losing money, time, effort and it takes a little bit of frustration to realize how to improve myself, but the positive change trumps them all.