Subbieitis

 What role does procrastination play in your life?

The short answer: it keeps me anchored. 

Procrastination has always been the enemy of many—it is what gets in the way of productivity, of being “locked in,” of getting one step closer to being done. To some extent, I agree with this. Being “locked in” to a goal that I wanted to achieve felt good, like I was accomplishing something meaningful. For a lot of my early high school years, essentially until sophomore year, I’d be constantly trying not to procrastinate. I spent a lot of time working on extracurriculars and schoolwork, and studied constantly for math competitions—essentially just to “pad my resume.” 

In hindsight, this drive to not be “locked out” stemmed from my experience immigrating to the U.S. from Korea. I moved to the U.S. two days before subbie year started and was directly plunged into an American schooling experience. Even before the jet lag wore off, I found myself sitting in classes (often dozing off) and eating lunch with an incredible diverse group of people. 

For me, my family had brought not just suitcases but entire worlds, planting roots in unfamiliar soil. Yet, my branches still reached toward home. Even as English started feeling familiar, I carried a Korean state of mind with me. 

Seoul, my Korean home, is a city where black-bean noodles arrive in five minutes to your doorstep, and where people slam the “close” button to save the time of elevator doors closing. It revolves around speed and mechanical efficiency. This culture, combined with the East Asian fervor for higher education, results in a society where students are pressured into constantly studying, where procrastination and relaxation is perceived as laziness and an indicator of failure. 

I carried this mindset to America and did the only thing that I knew how to do—studying. I gravitated to math competitions and spent hours each day preparing for physics olympiads. I feared that I’d become complacent. I found myself pushing through periods of burnout and fatigue with energy drinks, racing onward to stay afloat. I had every -itis possible: subbieitis, freshmanitis, sophomoreitis. 

During my rising junior summer break, however, I was incredibly fortunate enough to have the opportunity to attend a summer program in math. Here, I saw people with a true, infectious passion for the subject, a much deeper passion than the superficial one that I had developed while studying for competitions. People here took breaks when they wanted to, and treated learning more like a hobby than work. 

It’s hard to exactly pinpoint how I’ve changed through this program, but coming into junior year, I felt a lot more relaxed and was willing to take some time off. I quit preparing for competitions, which was the main thing that drove me, and started learning on my own accord. It felt a lot more relaxing to not be chased by goals and feel less of a compulsion to always stay locked in. Procrastination, and more widely relaxation, is something that I do more of now, but more so as a result of my initial “hustle” mindset fading than inherent laziness. I like to think of it as finding my own equilibrium between work and play—a skill that I believe is essential to have, since just working leads to extreme burnout. 

Of course, this is a nuanced problem, since I am getting less done in the traditional sense. Yet, it’s something that I believe I need, and it keeps me from burning out too badly.