The Cure for Laziness

Laziness is the unwillingness to do work or use energy. There’s no such a thing as laziness. There’s only the wrong type of work. The temporary condition of being uninspired.

Some are more willing to do uninspired work than others. This is seen as being hard-working, determined, and/or self-disciplined. And these people are certainly that. But there are people whom most would describe as lazy who are not actually lazy, but uninspired.

Behind the counter of Subway, a long-haired teenager drags his feet and haphazardly tosses double slices of turkey onto your sandwich instead of separating them, doesn’t cut the sandwich all the way through, slouches and forgets to ring up your chips and soda but doesn’t care so he just gives them to you. Put him in a skate park or behind the controls of a complex video game and ‘lazy’ is not a word you would ever use to describe him.

Another example: my dogs. When they’re in the house, they’re lazy. Uninspired.

Put them into their element where they can feel inspiration, and they’re anything but lazy.

By my standards, I’ve been lazy in every single job I’ve ever had. Of course I did enough to meet or surpass what was expected of me, but I never actually did my best or anywhere close to it. I was never inspired by any of those jobs. Selling golf equipment, working at the driving range, and doing all kinds of analytical work for different corporations. I was perpetually uninspired.

But if you were to see me in the gym or on the golf course or around the ponds and lakes catching bass or taking photos on my hikes (which are about to get a lot better thanks to a new camera ((and renewed determination – stay tuned))) or at my computer writing this post, you would see a laser-like focus. You would see complete immersion in the activity. You would see inspiration. (Update: click here for some recent photos.)

The key is to find those things which inspire us – and we don’t even know what all of those things are, which is why it’s so important always to try new things – and choose one or several on which we can focus most or all of our energy. Preferably things capable of providing us with a living if we do them well enough.

Inspiration is the cure for laziness.