Though it's a fantastic quote, I've never really been able to relate to Douglas Adam's line: "I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by."
The truth is, no part of me likes deadlines, not even a little. Yet, here I am in academia, living a life that's constantly governed by deadlines. Assignments, readings, quizzes, Odyssey articles - there's a lot to juggle.
However, I also fear the time in my life when I don't have deadlines hanging over me. As much as I dislike deadlines, they force me to do the things I need to do. There's a threat of external punishment for a lack of performance, and while it isn't exactly fun, it does result in things getting done. And having things done is really nice. However, I've noticed myself pushing closer to the wire with deadlines. This is especially noteworthy because I used to pride myself on planning ahead and avoiding last-minute panic. (There's a brilliant TED talk by Tim Urban that I'd highly recommend to anyone who's interested in learning more about how procrastination works and you can find it here).
I wonder how I'm going to get anything done when there isn't an immediate consequence for not doing things, especially when they're things I actually want to do. Writing stories, creating paintings, reading the long list of books that are on my list - the things that get shoved off when my plate is too full. There's no deadline for any of these, and so I have to figure out some push for doing them. Theoretically, that push would be innate and the hobby would be the reward itself, and it used to be - but somehow that changed over the years, and I'm left wondering how it happened. When my academic career is done (which is quite a ways off for me), I'll likely still have deadlines for work, but not quite as many. I need to figure out how to harness the last-minute energy before the panic sets in - and that's a task easier said than done.
The truth is, we all share one final deadline - death itself. There will eventually come a time when "I'll do it tomorrow" simply isn't possible. The exact time of the deadline varies among every single individual, but it will come.
There are various ways to react to this information. Most of us try to forget about it and manage to distract ourselves with the comparatively mundane deadlines within life itself, like students who've lost their syllabi and simply hope for the best. As a Christian, I look at the deadline of death and see it as the final assignment before vacation. However, there's a lot of work to be done before then, a race to run, and faithfulness to maintain.
