Fear and Procrastination

"I have received many benefits since I smoked my last joint. I’ve grown as a person, I know who I am now, and feel confident in expressing myself. I don’t live a secret stoned life anymore, and have had the burden of guilt surrounding my cannabis obsession removed. But perhaps the most practical benefit is that I don’t procrastinate like I used to. These days I don’t hide away from the tasks I don’t want to do. I deal with stuff, and stuff get done.

Many hardcore smokers, no matter how committed, would be honest enough to recognize the syndrome. For me, it was the way I had to have a smoke before I could do … well, almost anything. Go to the shops, make a phone call, leave the house, visit friends, do some work, watch TV, read a book. Had to have a smoke first. They say tobacco smokers use cigarettes as punctuation. It’s the same with joints, of course; but unlike cigarettes, every joint I used to smoke made my mind cloudier, so that I couldn’t trust myself to make the right decisions anymore. Things would get put off. Procrastination ruled. This cost me big time:

• Bills wouldn’t get paid – I ended up paying surcharges.
• I didn’t get it together to communicate properly at work – more expensive mistakes.
• I didn’t look for new work opportunities – who knows what I missed out on?
• I didn’t call back potential partners after I’d gone out with them – much regret.
• I didn’t check my bank statements – I lived in constant fear of bounced payments out of my account.
• I lost good friends who thought I didn’t like them, because I never kept in touch – I tended to isolate myself.
• I never got round to starting or finishing projects – life always felt unsatisfying on a deep level.

Psychologists call this Amotivational Syndrome, a characteristic defined by chronic cannabis abuse, or laziness. I’m not sure about that, as I don’t go for this idea that stoners are lazy just because they smoke pot. In my opinion, procrastination is all about fear. Fear of making the wrong decision. Do I really want to be with that person? Do I really need to pay that bill now? Is it worth risking the job that I know for something new? Do I really value myself enough to be worthy of a better lifestyle, of success? Fear is a major element of cannabis use.

• Paranoid fear.
• Fear of others knowing how much we smoke.
• Fear of doing or saying the wrong thing when we’re stoned.
• Fear of what life might be like without weed.
• Fear of our emotions and our feelings.
• And perhaps most of all, fear of achieving what we are capable of."