\u23f1 ~4 min reading<\/p>\n\n\n
Nikita was a smart boy. He quickly picked up on everything in class, memorized poems easily, and calculated in his head better than a calculator. But he had one habit\u2014the most difficult of all.<\/p>\n\n
He was procrastinating.<\/p>\n\n
He will come home from school, hang his backpack on a chair and say:<\/p>\n\n
\u2014 I'll do my lessons after lunch.<\/p>\n\n
Will have dinner. Will sit down to watch cartoons.<\/p>\n\n
\u2014 I'll do it after the cartoons.<\/p>\n\n
He will watch cartoons. He will want to play with a construction set.<\/p>\n\n
\u2014 I'll do it after the designer.<\/p>\n\n
He'll play. Dad will come home from work, everyone will sit down to dinner.<\/p>\n\n
\u2014 I'll do it after dinner.<\/p>\n\n
They're having dinner. They'll want to play with the phone a little more.<\/p>\n\n
\u2014 I'll do it after the phone call.<\/p>\n\n
And so it goes \u2014 until it gets dark outside the window, until mom comes into the room and says:<\/p>\n\n
\u2014 Nikita, you need to sleep!<\/p>\n\n
Then Nikita remembered: lessons.<\/p>\n\n
I grabbed my backpack, dumped my textbooks on the table. My eyes were already glued together. The letters were dancing. The examples looked like a rebus, and the poem was impossible to remember.<\/p>\n\n
In the morning, Nikita woke up with a heavy head. He gave bad answers at school. Sometimes he received remarks from the teacher.<\/p>\n\n
One Wednesday, it happened again. Nikita sat down for lessons at nine in the evening. The poem was long \u2014 about autumn, about a cranberry wedge. Nikita read and read \u2014 but the words didn't stick in his head.<\/p>\n\n
At half past ten, my mother came in and saw her son over a book \u2014 crying, tired.<\/p>\n\n
The village is nearby.<\/p>\n\n
\u2014 Nikita. Let's talk.<\/p>\n\n
Nikita snorted.<\/p>\n\n
"I can't. I don't remember.".<\/p>\n\n
\u2014 Why are you so tired?<\/p>\n\n
\u2014 Because it's late.<\/p>\n\n
\u2014 Why is it late?<\/p>\n\n
Nikita shrugged.<\/p>\n\n
Mom took his hand. Her palm was warm and smelled of cream\u2014lavender.<\/p>\n\n
"You know, son, I want to tell you something. Not as a reproach. As a gift.".<\/p>\n\n
Nikita looked up.<\/p>\n\n
\u2014 Imagine that tomorrow only begins when you go to bed. That your laziness today is a debt. And debts, son, become heavier every day. Now you are borrowing time from tomorrow. And tomorrow you will wake up - and it will not be enough.<\/p>\n\n
Nikita thought.<\/p>\n\n
\u2014 How is the loan?<\/p>\n\n
Mom smiled.<\/p>\n\n
"Exactly. Like a loan. Only with interest. Because a tired brain never learns as well as a fresh one.".<\/p>\n\n
Nikita was silent for a long time.<\/p>\n\n
\u2014 And if I do it right away, will it be better?<\/p>\n\n
\u2014 Try it. Get your evening back. Lessons take up an hour. And the evening is a whole one \u2014 for playing, for reading, for me and Dad.<\/p>\n\n
The next day, Nikita came home from school. He took off his jacket. He washed his hands.<\/p>\n\n
I ate lunch \u2014 and while I was eating, I thought. I didn't run to the phone. I didn't sit down to watch cartoons.<\/p>\n\n
He opened his backpack. He laid out his textbooks.<\/p>\n\n
I did the math. Five examples \u2014 quickly. My head is fresh, the numbers obey.<\/p>\n\n
I read the poem. Once. Second. Third. By five o'clock I already knew it by heart - because my brain wasn't as tired as it was last night.<\/p>\n\n
I added an exercise in Ukrainian.<\/p>\n\n
I closed my notebook.<\/p>\n\n
I looked at my watch - an hour and a half. That's all.<\/p>\n\n
And there's a whole evening ahead.<\/p>\n\n
Nikita smiled. He took a book he had wanted to read for a long time - about pirates. He sat down in a chair. He finished reading three chapters.<\/p>\n\n
When dad came home from work, Nikita showed me the finished notebooks.<\/p>\n\n
"Dad, look. That's it.".<\/p>\n\n
Dad raised his eyebrows in surprise.<\/p>\n\n
"Wow! Let's go play chess then?"<\/p>\n\n
Nikita beamed. Playing chess with his dad was his favorite thing to do.<\/p>\n\n
They played for a long time. They laughed. Nikita won one game. Then Dad won another. The third game was a draw.<\/p>\n\n
When Nikita went to bed, his mother came in to wish him "good night.".<\/p>\n\n
\u2014 How is your day, son?<\/p>\n\n
Nikita yawned.<\/p>\n\n
"Cool, Mom. Really. I'll do the same tomorrow.".<\/p>\n\n
\u2014 Why?<\/p>\n\n
\u2014 Because the evening is the best reward.<\/p>\n\n
Mom kissed him on the forehead and turned off the light.<\/p>\n\n
And Nikita fell asleep with the thought that tomorrow had already started well, because today had been lived to the fullest.<\/p>\n\n\n
\ud83d\udca1 What is done today gives you a free evening - but what is postponed will steal all the joy of tomorrow.<\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n
Nikita put off his lessons every day until one evening he realized that it would be better to do the opposite.<\/p>","protected":false},"featured_media":3252,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"yasr_overall_rating":0,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"","rank_math_description":"","rank_math_title":"","rank_math_focus_keyword":""},"class_list":["post-2290","istoriya","type-istoriya","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"yasr_visitor_votes":{"stars_attributes":{"read_only":false,"span_bottom":false},"number_of_votes":0,"sum_votes":0},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kazkaland.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/istoriya\/2290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kazkaland.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/istoriya"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kazkaland.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/istoriya"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kazkaland.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kazkaland.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}