You’ve probably heard someone get called “lazy” before. Maybe someone called you lazy! I’ve even had students who believe that they themselves are lazy.
Personally, I believe that “lazy” doesn’t actually exist. I think that lazy is a pretty lazy word. When people are being “lazy,” they are usually:
- Taking a well-needed break
- Building community with others
- Thinking about something
These are all good and necessary things. Healthy humans don’t work every second of the day. We socialize, we ponder, we imagine.
But there’s one more way of looking at lazy, and it’s this:
- Feeling unmotivated because you don’t have any meaningful work
And this type of laziness, research shows, is really dangerous.
Taking care of your self
The healthy human has a self that needs to feel that they are moving toward something. It actually doesn’t matter what that “thing” is!
- Some of us are action people—we love competitive sports, science projects, going out and doing things with other people.
- Some of us are thinkies—we love to spend long hours contemplating problems, making up stories, arguing ideas with our friends.
- Some of us are problem solvers—we don’t feel good unless we’ve identified a problem that needs to be solved and a way we can help out.
- Some of us are any combination of all three and even more!
No matter how we interact with the world, we’re happiest when we feel that what we’re doing is meaningful.
I am writing this in a time of pandemic, when lots of us are stuck indoors, not able to go out and do our usual routines, and separated from our friends. This is the perfect recipe for falling into despair.
But despair never got us anywhere!
Find some meaningful work
Meaningful work is what’s going to help you through boredom, frustration, loneliness, and all those other things that come along with hard times like these.
What sort of meaningful work should you do? It actually doesn’t matter! If it’s meaningful to you, that’s healthy and good.
So don’t be lazy…
…because real laziness doesn’t exist. You will need some downtime, of course, because we all do. But make sure that you are also doing something that will add meaning to your life.
Think about it:
What can you do to give your life meaning?
The answer is yours to find!