We’re under attack. Something of our creation is controlling our minds, ripping our lives apart. Throbbing brains, red eyes sore from sleepless nights and zombie bodies dragging their feet through campus are all symptoms of the relentless disease — procrastination.

It’s that time of year when we regret not keeping up with our assigned readings. Term papers, big tests and presentations are due. It’s completely overwhelming, and there is no time left to succumb to procrastination’s evil ways.

For some, procrastination has been ingrained in our systems since we started our education. In elementary school, to avoid homework, my brother and I hid from our mom and played on the swings behind my house, pretending we were flying airplanes. It was more fun than sitting inside, writing reports about dead presidents or doing division and multiplication problems.

Still, to this day, to this very second, procrastination creeps over my shoulder — even though I enjoy writing this column. All I have to do is click on the Internet Explorer icon and there I go, off into the universe of National Geographic, YouTube and Facebook.

I thrive on the adrenaline of last-minute work, and sometimes, it’s impossible to finish homework ahead of time because I’m weak without the invigorating natural drug. Late at night, it’s just me, the silence of my sleeping roommates and the adrenaline pumping through my fingers as they click away at the keyboard.

On Sunday night, my roommate, Anna, was delaying her theology paper research. As an English major, she couldn’t handle the imperfect, drawn out writing style of theologians. Instead, she was online figuring out how to get to Cabela’s camping supplies store in case there is a zombie apocalypse and she needs bows and arrows or guns to kill them off. It’s located 30 minutes north in Richfield, if you’re wondering.

Surely, this was a complete waste of time on her part. A zombie apocalypse won’t happen and her theology grade will probably suffer because of this procrastination.

We do silly things all the time to avoid what we should be doing. My friend, Ben, procrastinates by telling himself there will be a lot of time to do homework later and that hanging out with his friends is much more important, anyway.

But the truth is, time disappears way faster than we expect. Pretty soon we are chin deep in tests and papers, and the only choices left are to pull an all-nighter or fail. It’s not healthy to stay up all night long, twice a week, yet we continue to procrastinate — some more extreme than others.

My classmate Bill tends to complete routine homework and smaller assignments before moving onto larger assignments. Because he’s unsure of how to approach a big project, he psyches himself out, thinking he is unable to do it.

Well, Bill is fooling himself. And we are all fooling ourselves if we let the pressure of the project psyche us out. Tell yourself that you can do it. Make yourself sit down and start working. Once you get going, you get a taste of what it takes to complete the project and begin to gain a little faith in yourself.

Now that it’s the very end of the semester, don’t let yourself stress out. Don’t let perfectionism paralyze your abilities.

As my cousin James likes to say, “All you have to do is decide what to do with the time given to you.” Get to work. Do the best you can. And when the time is up, be satisfied with what you accomplished.