That’s right, I said it.
Growing up, ‘lazy’ was a term I applied to myself a lot – probably picked up by my frustrated parents who weren’t interested in feeding my video game addiction.
To fight off the stigma of laziness, I’d find myself racing to do more, accomplish more. This of course, led to burnout and feeling guilty about being lazy again.
Thankfully I’ve outgrown that unhealthy cycle. But it took a recent rant to a friend to make me realize I still applied the word to other people in my life.
We on a double date with our respective partners, mid-discussion on our challenges with the various contract workers we’d hired around the house. I was particularly incensed by how rarely said workers got back to us after we called with a problem. “It’s like they’re too lazy to pick up a phone,” I said.
My friend interrupted me. “Not lazy,” he insisted.
I paused, quickly backtracked and corrected myself, and didn’t think of it again for the evening. Later though, it occurred to me that ‘lazy’ is just a word used by people who don’t understand or appreciate what someone is going through.
Many of us struggle with the laziness demon, pushing ourselves to extreme lengths to avoid the accompanying self-judgement that follows a veg-out on the couch. Why do we procrastinate on our goals like this?
Here’s some of my present (and historical) reasons. No doubt you have your own:
- I didn’t sleep well last night, and need some recharge time.
- I’m mentally stressed out.
- I’m procrastinating about an activity I don’t really want to do.
- I’ve been triggered by something, and need time to vent my feelings into my diary.
- I haven’t spent much time snuggling with my bunny lately.
Notice that I’m giving ‘reasons’, NOT ‘excuses’. Sure, I could have spent my time more productively – assuming the productive ideal is to work non-stop with no breaks except to eat or sleep. But that makes for a miserable existence. And a miserable person is ultimately very UNproductive.
Of course, some deadlines should not be shirked – your wedding ceremony, or a work-related appointment, for example. But if you’re feel like you’re racing from deadline to deadline, you seriously need to start prioritizing yourself.
We can also point fingers at people who complain about their lives but rarely take action to improve on them. Such people are stuck for sure – they likely feel helpless and afraid. Perhaps their complaining comes from an attempt to gain a sense of control over their lives. Laziness though, doesn’t enter into it.
The problem with the word ‘lazy’, is that it doesn’t offer any opportunities for improvement; it just sits there, proclaiming your eternal sedentary-ness to the world.
Laziness isn’t our natural state. We may have been taught to be ‘lazy’, or rebelled against workaholics, or a million other reasons, but if the barriers to our improvement were removed, or even weakened enough, we’d be pushing ourselves as hard as the next go-getter.
And so, allow me to wrap up with some alternatives we can use to replace ‘lazy’ when we describe ourselves or others:
- Suffering from a lack of motivation.
- Prioritizing other tasks at the moment.
- In need of some ‘me-time’.
- Struggling with resistance to the task-at-hand.
- Tired.
- Depressed.
- Listening to the needs of the body.
- Decompressing from a stressful event.
- Not sure what to do/where to go next.
- Feeling unwell physically/mentally.
- Feeling nervous about some part of the task.
- Taking some time to recharge.
I like these alternatives, because they point in a specific direction, IF you want to make a change. For example, if motivation is a problem, you might ask yourself, “when did I start losing my motivation? Is there something I can do to get it back?”
Let me know your alternatives to lazy in the comments below if you like. No pressure though if you just need to relax 😉
Credits:
‘Black Combat Boot’ by JACK REDGATE from Pexels
‘Ginger cat sleeping on ground in autumn’ by Blue Bird from Pexels