Laziness is a Virtue

Lazy is as lazy does -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
If you look at the Catholics’ Seven Deadly Sins, one of them is “sloth”. Sloth is another word for laziness or a disinclination to do productive work. I’ve heard the word bandied about all my life (not always about me! ☺). Usually it’s an invective: “Lazeee!” Sometimes it’s stuational as in, “He was too lazy to help pull the weeds”. Sometimes it’s more of a lifestyle accusation – “She’s lazy – all she does is smoke and watch television all day”.

I’ve always thought the topic of laziness was interesting in that strenuous labor isn’t generally fun; how far must you cross the Rubicon to be accused of laziness? If you are employed or in a relationship, you’re part of a social contract where workloads are implied if not explicit. Your spouse or employer may have a hunch about what your share should be and how much effort should be expended. I’d like to submit that there are notable exceptions to the rules of laziness.

At TI I had a fellow employee who was brilliant. He could do his assigned work (and somewhat more) in less than two hours and then spend time on more personal pursuits. In fact, he was delivering to the company the services they wanted, at the salary he wanted. Some say he should’ve asked for more to fill his plate. I might agree, but mainly to the extent that he could help other employees leverage from his timesaving techniques.

In general, here are some caveats about laziness:

o It’s not laziness if you’re inventing a better mousetrap. If you’re trading brawn for brain, and ultimately making a task easier, you’re productively inventive – not lazy.

o It’s not laziness if the task is unpleasant sweat work and you can hire the work done. It’s a story as old as capitalism – sometimes time is better spent doing enjoyable or personally productive things. This is especially true of leisure time at home.

o It’s not laziness if you are under the thrall of a despotic regime that’s forcing quotas or making you respond to a bell timer. No one should be a slave and really, ultimately nobody should do anything they don’t want to do unless it fits some part of his or her life goals.

o It’s by far better to do something because you want to do it, rather than because you have to do it. If the balance shifts toward “have to” and away from “want to” it might be time for a change of venue.

It’s true that sometimes rote activities are good practice or good exercise. If you find yourself carrying jugs of water on your head, let’s hope that it’s to garner strength or balance – not because of an economic condition. Is someone in your life lazy? Is it because he really can’t get it in gear, or because his priorities aren’t the same as yours? Maybe he isn’t on fire to do your bidding. Or maybe he’s a “philosopher king” taking some moments to reflect. Whatever the case, we’re probably on safer ground if the subject of lazy speculations is ourselves and not the person across the room. There is such a thing as “dereliction of duty” – 5 alarm laziness. This is fairly atypical; for myself I’ll be working on some mousetraps and leave the 5 alarm designating to others.

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