The Declaration of Independence is a highly effective document in explaining the rationale behind American separation from British rules. It expertly utilitied ethos and logos, with occasional implementation of pathos, to convincingly convey that the former colonies’ independence was inevitable. By using this structure and language, I experimented with writing a Letter of Independence to “Sir Procrastination,” similar to what the American founding fathers did to the King of England. Below is the entry I wrote for the final project of my high school literature class.
When mentality is at its most optimal state, I become fully aware of the shortcomings I am facing and thoroughly understand the elements that contributed to them. As an ambitious person, it is common sense that one must invest his/her best resources to achieve goals, to reach successes, and to pursue happiness. With that being said, all the elements, the factors, the subjects that prevented me from achieving these must be dissolved. From my honest perspective, I do appreciate your contributions in helping me relaxing and having joy, as well as rebalancing me when I buried myself in work and projects. Nevertheless, time passed, and so did our “honeymoon.” You began to overcontrol and negatively affect my behaviors, and that brought more harm than good. Low productivity, fewer time resources, and consecutive failures are just among the tip of the iceberg of the disadvantages due to your manipulation of me. Therefore, I am writing this letter to you to clearly explain the most fundamental reasons for my immediate and total separation from you, Sir Procrastination.
Since the very moment I was born, the Creator has gifted me with various unalienable Rights: the Right of Success, the Right of Self-Awareness and the Pursuit of Happiness. Firstly, the Law of Common-Sense states that all people are created equal and have the Right to achieve success in their life. Success is not just the achievement of a purpose; it is the galvanizing desire to reach a higher standard of oneself. It gives human the motives to continue to live, to work, to improve and to keep trying relentlessly. Secondly, every single person in this world deserves to be aware of his/her own personality, feelings, motives, and desires. As a matter of fact, it gives me the control over myself, the knowledge about myself and the insights into my soul. It crafts the bridge between the Heart and Brain, ensuring and balancing the connection and seamlessness of this complicated self. Without self-awareness, Life is just a tumult, blurry journey of strugglings. Finally, since the moment being born, we human, have always asked a question: “Why am I here?”, “What is the point of my life?” I sincerely suppose that the ultimate meaning of life is to pursue Happiness. It is the state of fulfillment and satisfaction, the climax of one’s positive emotion and mentality. Everyone deserves to lead a happy life from the moment they are brought to this life. But unfortunately, you, Sir Procrastination, have ignored these demanding significances of my natural Rights. With your attractive lies and addictions, you have seduced me in the wrong direction of achieving success. Whenever I tried to invest my entire focus and time resources to accomplish a task, here comes you, Mr. Procrastination, with your enticing reasons, leading me to spend my time in wrongful activities. And you also eroded my ability of self-awareness by inserting into my minds hallucinations of my feelings, desires and motivations, with the evil purpose of making me lose myself. With that being said, without a Righteous spirit of Self-Awareness and a Goal to reach Success, no fulfillment or Happiness could be achieved. And without Happiness, life is usurped, empty, meaningless and deteriorated. Nevertheless, I am fully aware it is painful and laborious to alter or abolish a habit, a lifestyle that has long been accustomed. But when you invariably execute a myriad of abuses and usurpations towards my natural rights, it becomes my right, my duty and my responsibility to declare independence from you to protect my sacred rights and to establish new habits and spirituals that provide sustainable future security for my Rights.
The damages and sufferings I have been through are immeasurable, and the patience and stamina for them are exceeded; therefore, a separation is inevitable. The history of you, Sir Procrastination, is a history of constant usurpations and damages. And to prevent you from refuting and to restate the seriousness of your crimes, and because your evils are myriad, I solemnly enlisted only some of the most significant crimes along with my bitter and desperate grievances below:
You have obstructed my road to success by robbing my time resources and motivation whenever my mind is at the greatest steadiness state.
You have lied to me that the deadline is far away, and led me to spend time on leisure activities; therefore, I have been trapped in a vicious cycle of lateness and failures.
You have rubbed salt in my wound whenever I had shortcomings to humiliate me and to erode my motivation for success.
You have led me into a lifestyle of pleasure-seeker, putting short-term gain over the potential risk of long-term pain.
You have redirected my true positive feeling into negative covetousness so that I could never have positive emotional fulfillment.
You have oppressed my effort of understanding my true long-term motives by inserting into my minds short-term desires.
You have seduced me into spending precious time binge-watching meaningless movies on Netflix rather than working on a tremendous amount of due projects and works.
You have avoided me from connecting with my inner self by seducing me into reading ridiculous social media posts and spent time posting equivalently ridiculous ones.
You have kindled domestic insurrections amongst my mind: I never had a still, tranquil moment to self-perceive, to self-reflect and to self-understand of my own circumstances.
You have plundered my intellects, ravaged my minds, burn out my vision, and destroyed my happiness.
In every stage of these injustices, I have requested for solutions and compromises in the most humble terms. I have tried to reach an agreement between leisure time and productive time, using scientifical methods such as Eisenhower Techniques – for every 25 minutes you let me alone to work and study, I will give you 5 minutes of leisure time, which is such a humble concession. I have attempted to request you to let me alone when I am at my weakest time, for my pain and sufferings to be self-amended. I have petitioned to your consent in allowing me to “self-govern” my mind, my goal and my behavior to some extent, with you still being one of the advisors.
But my repeated Petitions have been answered only by tremendous Opposition, repeated Injury and increasing Hostilities. The more I struggle to compromise, to change and to humble myself, the more leverage you use to manipulate and threaten my natural rights and interests. You did not accept my generous compromise of 5 minutes leisure for every 25 minutes productivity; in contrast, you forced me into doing the opposite: 25 minutes procrastinating for every 5 minutes of actual work. You threatened and humiliated my ability to success whenever I suffered from failures, and lured me into tumult procrastinativeactivities. You further occupied my mind and oppressed my positive intentions. All of my intention of peaceful compromises and maintaining a union with you come to nowhere but an eventual and bitter end. I mourn for the heyday between us when we still mutually supported each other, and I bitterly accept the truth that you, Procrastination are no longer compatible with the preservation of my natural rights. I must, as a consequence, acquiesce in the necessity to denounce my Separation from you, Sir Procrastination for once and forever.
I, as an inevitable result, and in the name and by the consent of the Good intention of my Mind, solemnly declare that since this moment, I am released from all rule and control of Sir Procrastination. All mental connection between you and I will be dissolved entirely. With a free and righteous mentality, I have the absolute right, ability and condition to invest my valuable time and resources to reach success, to be aware of my personality, motives and desires, and to pursue the happiness in my life. With that being said, I do not allow Procrastination to intervene in any of my decision-making process or my usage of time resources; therefore, all of my best will undoubtedly be used to pursue the very best for myself, for the preservation and advancement of my natural rights and my benefits. Standing at the threshold of a new chapter of my life where there is no Procrastination, and to reinforce the unanimous support of this Declaration, I genuinely pledge to myself with my Self-Esteem, my Self-Confidence and my sacred Honors.
Sincerely,
DoHa Nguyen
Ms. Brown’s American Literature Honors Class, Cambridge Academy of Technical Sciences in Boston. Written in Aug 2017.
