With an exam coming up in less than half a month for which I'm painfully underprepared, I should be studying and doing practice exams. But when it comes to actually doing the required work, I freeze up.

I struggle, as I have for the past quarter of a century, with procrastination. The allure of (nigh-)instant gratification is intoxicating and addicting - far more than any spirit or drug, and equally deleterious.
It pains and vexes me even as I grin at inconsequential pleasures. How can I complete anything memorable if even beginning is such a Sisyphean ordeal?