Embrace ‘LAZY’

I was asked by my life coach if I could embrace laziness as a way of my life. I had a hard time understanding what that meant because whenever I go to the beach or whenever I go out I typically don't like to sit still. Then I recognized that there's certain aspects of laziness that can be attributed to more powerful ideas.

For example, consider a quote from my brother Cameron: “Give the hardest job to the laziest person on the job site, and they will find the easiest way to do it”

There is a certain amount of innovation on behalf of that lazy person.

Can you find the innovation in doing what you're doing?

I find that when I am trying to do something in my world I will attempt to find the easiest way to do it, and  I'm not sure if that's lazy or if it's trying to be more effective and efficient. I'd like to think it's more effective.

Are there other ways to think about laziness as an attribute rather than a stigma? Are there other ways that a lazy person could be considered a contributor to society? Let's look at our history. Many of the artists in our past were all labeled is lazy, but many of them also created some of the most amazing pieces of art and creativity.

Many times people think of stillness as being lazy, but I say the stillness affords us the time to be introspective and think about what is important to us. I recently have taking up the practice of meditating and I practice sitting in stillness everyday. For me this is not being lazy but it is being mindful.

Are there other ways that you can think of to get your mind off of the spinning wheel that it stays on during the course of your day in order to unlock or unleash some creative/ innovative ideas that you may have?

Every day at noon on my lunch hour, is a time that I like to go to the social media and check different things. This is the time that I get to turn my brain off and be the voyeur and see what's happening on social media around me. This is my escape from work. This is what I consider the lazy self. My concern is that if I do continue to embrace that kind of laziness that I will then use it as a procrastination tool. I have been a procrastinator in the past, and I'm sure that I could be a procrastinator in the future! But what I do to stop myself is to say “as soon as I've finished eating any of the food that I have I turn my focus back on my work”. Do you have an anchor that you use to help you get back to your work?

Let's list out some of the other terms for laziness:

• Innovation
• Stillness
• Creativity
• Recovery
• Learning
• Growing

If we take the stigma away from the word lazy and use some positive labels in order to reframe what laziness is, we may just find that we can actually embrace the lazy. This is been rather difficult for me to do, but I am learning and growing and I hope that I will be able to be lazy when it's necessary and balance my life accordingly.

Let me know what you think if there's a way that you can embrace the lazy different way than what I described today. If this helps you please drop me a line and let me know how it did. Thank you for reading.