Too Much Playing

When I was a child, my parents were perhaps too indulgent of my desire to play, probably because they themselves are fond of "playing." This created dysfunction in our household: I played with my toys, my mother played games on the computer, my father read and watched TV; meanwhile dust gathered, papers piled up, and hardly anything got cleaned. Often on Sunday evenings, when my mother told me to clean up my toys, I would insist on leaving them out, saying that I would want to pick up where I left off last weekend. My room was cleaned maybe once a year, and it usually took a push from my grandmother to accomplish that. As I grew older, and family influence lessened, I became even more indolent, and my room has been a perpetual mess probably since I started middle school. My propensity to "play" instead of work translated into my school work as well, and the more work I was given, the less inclined I was to complete it. In the past couple of years, I have probably spent more time procrastinating than I have working or even doing what I really wanted to do. As a result, I do not learn as much and I feel more stressed, and it seems that I never have time for fun. Paradoxically, never learning how to balance work and play means that it is difficult for me to enjoy "playing" now.