Satire: I Was Placed On This Earth To Put Off Doing Something Extraordinary

A little satire from The Onion. Thing is, I know people who are like this, always waiting for their life to start as the days tick away. They are never quite ready to do their "life's work," which will be something amazing, because there is always one more thing that needs to happen first. I think that this might be a disorder of the "sensitive self" developmental stage. This Onion piece is a pretty funny skewering of that type of person.

I Was Placed On This Earth To Put Off Doing Something Extraordinary
By Randy Gerber
November 22, 2006 | Issue 42•47

Ever since I was born three weeks overdue, it was clear that there was something different about me. However, it wasn't until I postponed going into the ninth grade, just days before delaying my 16th birthday, that I realized what it is that makes me unique.

You see, I was placed on this earth to put off doing something extraordinary and I won't settle for holding up anything less.

I'm on a different path than most. A higher path. A path that takes numerous detours until one finds oneself, many months later, back where one first started. It's a long, hard road, but I know that if I just take things one lateral step at a time, I will at last defer achieving my true potential.

Mark my words: Nothing will get in the way of me getting things in the way of my goal.

Whether it's never finding the time to search for a cure for cancer, dedicating my life to abandoning the idea of helping those less fortunate so that I might instead watch The Game Show Network, or pushing aside the urge to start a family in order to spend time at the local bar, I take solace in knowing that I was meant to not follow through on something remarkable.

It's not the type of thing I can explain, especially not during my aimless daylong drives around town, or my spontaneous bouts of sitting in silence. It's more of a feeling I plan to someday put into words. Unlike other people, I know that when I surf the Internet for hours and hours, rather than simply killing time, I'm avoiding doing something truly spectacular.

I may not seem like much now, but someday everyone will see that I'll be more or less at the same place I am today. Many will count me out. They'll say that I don't have what it takes to stay focused on my dream, that I lack the determination to not succeed. Well, I can hardly wait to see the looks on their faces next year when I'm still five to seven years away from being something spectacular.

If I stay off task and dedicate myself 15 percent, I can become as big as the almost-greats of the past, the men who could've become Einstein, Galileo, or even Edison—men of limitless untapped potential who exhibited a nearly unparalleled capacity for procrastination. Like them, God has a plan for me. An amazingly vague plan that drags its feet and never really gets going until it's too late.

I guess you could say I'm one of the lucky ones.

Every morning when I wake up just as the sun is about to rise, before realizing how early it is and going back to bed, I have only one thing on my mind—getting a bit more shut-eye. I'm telling you, in time, I'm going to reschedule doing something so utterly amazing, I can't even start to think about it right now. Or later tonight, because that's when the Sanford And Son marathon is going to be on.

You only get one chance to delay the important things in life, and it's a chance I'm not going to hold up setting back unless I'm especially preoccupied.

What am I going to not do? Who knows? Maybe I'll procrastinate going into show business, or slack off becoming a world-renowned surgeon. Perhaps I'll put writing the Great American Novel on the back burner. Whatever happens, be assured that I will not rest until I've rested, and I will not start until I absolutely have to.

I am standing on the precipice of greatness, and I intend to stay there, even if it takes my entire lifetime.

Tags: The Onion, satire, putting off life, procrastination