Advice: just write the paper. Between this comment and my last I've just brain dumped 1000 words down - 1500 isn't too much to write. Just get it done in some raw form, then go make dinner, then come back revise, edit, add sources. At least in the absolute worst case, you'll have something accomplished.
It brings to home a recent event, one of my childhood friends, who hasn't figured this out, has a couple kids by two different women, no education or good money making job skills. He's spent his entire life to date doing whatever feels good and interests him instead of making the painful investments in his future.
He just got his first paycheck after the courts ruled he needed to start making his child payments. That first paycheck was smaller than what he got from his part-time retail job he had right after high school in absolute dollars (adjusted for inflation it's way smaller).
He's turning 40 now and is just starting to realize that he's spent over 20 years accomplishing nothing, and in a little over 20 years, when he retires he'll have nothing to retire on. It's worse than if he had earned it then lost it all. At least he'd have the intrinsic skills and work history to try and rebuild it. Right now he's barely qualified for a low-paid, dead end salaried job working tech support.
It's all caught up to him and he's working all the time now and has nothing to show for it in the near or far term. He's getting by on the charity of others. He's looking back on the few opportunities he had, that if he had taken advantage of them instead of chasing immediate joy he'd be in a much better place and better able to realize his dreams, and better positioned to have and properly raise his kids.
There's a possibility one of his exes is going to move across the country and now he's desperately trying to figure out how to be involved in both of his kid's lives...and realizing he doesn't even have the money to make a single one-way flight to visit his other kid.
He has nothing to offer for his older kid's future either, now that he's only a few years away from graduating high school. And his kid, young as he is, has figured this out and is already making plans for his life outside of this mess...he's joining the military and this has my friend scared for the safety of his child.
This is not where anybody wants to end up, but it's all a result of tens of thousands of small decisions where he could have chosen to do the boring grindy stuff and invest in his future, or do something that felt like more fun and he chose the fun path.
It's not too late for anybody to turn the ship of their life around though, it just takes raw willpower and a single minded focus on your goals. Sacrifice near term fun for a better long term outcome.
