I’m an eleventh-hour person. No matter how much I plan, somehow, I usually end up doing everything only at the last minute. Sounds familiar? It may not be the best of habits, but I have found that my mind works the best under stress when I’m racing against time. When there is too much time, my mind goes into something like hibernation. The hardest chapter begins to give way when,

in a last-dictch attempt, I start hammering away at it. The most boring subject begins to make sense when I go at it hammer and tongs on the eve of the exam. What is it about the eleventh hour that brings out the best in us? Fear?

When each exam nears, you become nervous becasue there are a thousand and one things you have to master and you are hard up for time. Then, in trepidation, you vow that the next time you will shake off your past and make preparations well in advance, avoiding the last-minute jitters. Each time you clean your messy room, you resolve to keep it tidy on a regular basis.

Every time you stay awake whole night to catch up with loads of homework, you make a resolution that in future you will not let it happen by becoming a regular worker. But you tend to forget all your vows as soon as the crisis is over. What amazes me is the flexibility of our metabolic system. If you remember every word you read the previous night for the exam, where has all that knowledge you thought you had implanted in your brain before gone now? Is it a mere slippery fish or is it a matter of self-discipline?

If the latter, is self-discipline a quality you cannot learn later? Is it inborn? I’ve seen some people who are regular and methodical workers doing things at the right time effortlessly. And there are others like me who simply cannot learn new tricks. Maybe, I do not try hard enough.

Maybe, it is our devil-may-care approach to things that encourages such a tendency. It’s not just people, after all; look at our public institutions which have the same attitude to work and duty unless you storm the streets. The attitude of “We’ll deal with it when we have to” seems to be the unwritten law of almost every sector of society. Nevertheless, I accept that the eleventh-hour attitude is not something to be proud of.