Narrative Essay Sample. I am Procrastinating Perfectionist

I was a procrastinating perfectionist with the crippling fear of failure. This started as soon as I made it to middle school and subsided late sophomore to early junior year of highschool. Being a perfectionist while also being a procrastinator left me in a constant state of anxiety. Being in this state constantly led me never to be fully confident in my own choices. I had always feared failure in anything. Whether it was sports or grades, I had to be more than adequate; I had to be as close to perfect as possible. If I wasn’t automatically good at something, I quit; I hated it. I despised seeing grades below an 80 and thought it would massively derail any chance I had at a good future. I was my grades; I was a number. Growing up and being labeled as a gifted kid meant you were always called smart and bright. Being tested and being timed could prove that I was worthy of love and attention. I had to uphold these labels that were forced on me, and you may think it’s good that I have self-discipline, and that’s how I justified the years of mental degradation this had on me. I was constantly worried about my future; I never lived in the moment. 

To make things worse, I went to a school that was constantly putting pressure on me to figure out my future; in my freshman year, they told me I had to have a plan. I needed to have a career plan and major picked out, a dream college and a living plan. For years, the school system has taught us to write research papers, cite our sources, and write analyses, but never were we given the opportunity to analyze our own lives. My mindset was that I had to have good grades, good scores, a life plan while also balancing clubs and excelling in sports if I ever wanted to succeed in any aspect of my life. In my junior year, I came to realize that this information, this standard, is drilled into our heads at such a young age that we don’t know any different. How are we supposed to? 

Continually worrying about my grades and my future was always weighing me down; I was excelling in school, but I wasn’t experiencing school. I would get A’s, but only after trying to absorb all of the information in one night for a test, but only after spending all my time figuring out how to do something correctly, only after perfecting all of my assignments past the teachers standards to my own. I would procrastinate, not because I was lazy, but because I wanted to make sure that I could do it perfectly. Was it worth it? You tell me. When I didn’t automatically understand something, I was stupid. I wouldn’t ask for help either, I should be able to figure it out on my own without asking anyone to pity me right? I can’t make a mistake, all my colleges will reject me, right?

I don’t want to be the person who has everything figured out anymore because it’s society’s standard, and I don’t want to be the person who pushes themselves past their limits just because I’m afraid to fail, just to see a good grade on my screen. I want to be the person that considers the achievements and growth in failing, I want to be the person that is okay with a bad grade, I want to be free from all the anxiety about my future. The person writing this today is that person. I have become content knowing that I am not a perfect student, and that I probably never will be because that isn’t real. I have become content knowing that my time right now is temporary, and that right now doesn’t define my future.