When the going gets tough, the tough get going; which is also, coincidentally, about the same time I usually run for the hills. I don’t like confrontation, I don’t like dealing with my problems. If there is a rug within striking distance, I will sweep everything I can under it. Why go face to face with the uncomfortable and the indelicate? Does one really have to?

I used to think that I relished in my procrastination. “I work better with my back against the wall,” I remember telling a fellow scholar. “What can be done today is better left for tomorrow,” I have used that one more than once. I have written some of my best papers in a deadline induced panic with nothing but the darkness to guide me home. I have spat out some red hot bullshit in a classroom before, knowing damn well all I read was the cliff notes from the internet. On one occasion, I crafted and executed a five course meal because I so desperately did not want to study for a midterm exam.

Slowly, but most assuredly, this behavior gave way to a few problems of much greater totality. “Oh, let me just smoke a cigarette before I get started on this homework,” I tell myself sometimes. Yet, I have a tendency to run out of cigarettes before I run out of homework that needs be done. When I have some things I need to sort through and organize in my mind, I might sit back and smoke a blunt – fast forward three hours to find me sitting in my boxer shorts with a bag of chips in my lap and the Kardashians on my TV. Furthermore, I am Italian and I am Catholic, and thus, I enjoy my wine. A single glass of wine can reduce inflammation, boost memory capacity, and even help weight loss; but I tend to drink my Vino by the bottle and not by the glass.

My style of blatant disregard is not only limited to the tragedies of adulthood. When I was young, I gave up playing football in the ninth grade, for a variety of reasons, but chiefly because I didn’t see the point in busting my ass for a few moments of glory on Friday nights. That motivated a lot of boys, just not me. Then came golf, a sport that I think was designed by two men fighting over which one was the idiot and which one was the asshole. I liked the game of golf: being outside, lining up a good shot, learning respect and kindness for fellow golfers. Before too long, I realized that I didn’t give a damn what my score was so long as I was having fun. So, if after the first three holes I hadn’t found my groove, you would find me enjoying the view.

The culmination of my “Quitter” attitude could be summed up just that way: I haven’t found my groove, so I am enjoying the view. I am intellectual, but find homework to be a daunting and demoralizing task. I love to learn new things, but working to learn is new to me. I’ve never been the best student, so why should I even try? College is the hardest thing I have ever had to do, which is the reason I must do it now.

Signed,

Daniel J. Neebes