The Hard Work of being Lazy

At times, perhaps without quite knowing why, we slip into a resolutely ‘lazy' mood.

We're simply not able to write anything new or can't face setting up more meetings.

We don't want to clean the fridge or go out to befriend prospective clients. All we

have an appetite for, it seems, is to loll on the sofa and maybe dip randomly into a

book, wander down to the shops and buy a packet of biscuits or spend an hour or so soaking

in the bath. We might, at an extreme, merely want to sit by the window and stare at the

clouds. For a long time.

In such states of mind, we're rapidly liable to be stigmatized as profoundly (and incorrigibly)

‘lazy' by friends or - more painfully - by our own conscience. Laziness feels like

a sin against the bustling activity of modernity; it seems to bar us from living successfully

or from thinking in any way well of ourselves. But, to consider the matter from another perspective,

it might be that at points the real threat to our happiness and self-development lies

not in our failure to be busy, but in the very opposite scenario: in our inability to

be ‘lazy' enough.

Outwardly idling does not have to mean that we are neglecting to be fruitful. It may look

to the world as if we are accomplishing nothing at all but, below the surface, a lot may be

going on that's both important and in its own way very arduous. When we're busy with

routines and administration, we're focused on those elements that sit at the front of

our minds: we're executing plans rather than reflecting on their value and ultimate

purpose. But it is to the deeper, less accessible zones of our inner lives that we have to turn

in order to understand the foundations of our problems and arrive at decisions and conclusions

that can govern our overall path. Yet these only emerge - shyly and tentatively - when

we are feeling brave enough to distance ourselves from immediate demands; when we can stare

at clouds and do so-called nothing all afternoon while in fact wrestling with our most profound

dilemmas.

We need to distinguish between emotional and practical hard work. Someone who looks extremely

active, whose diary is filled from morning till night, who is always running to answer

messages and meet clients may appear the opposite of lazy. But secretly, there may be a lot

of avoidance going on beneath the outward frenzy. Busy people evade a different order

of undertaking. They are practically a hive of activity, yet they don't get round to

working out their real feelings. They constantly delay the investigation of their own lives.

They are lazy when it comes to understanding particular emotions. Their busy-ness may be

a subtle but powerful form of distraction.

Our minds are in general a great deal readier to execute than to reflect. They can be rendered

deeply uncomfortable by so-called large questions: What am I really trying to do? What do I actually

enjoy and who am I trying to please? By contrast, the easy bit can be the running around, the

never pausing to ask why, the repeatedly ensuring that there isn't a moment to have doubts

or feel sad or searching. Busy-ness can mask a vicious form of laziness.

Our lives might be a lot more balanced if we learnt to re-allocate prestige, pulling

it away from those with a full diary and towards those wise enough to allow for some afternoons

of reflection. We should think that there is courage not just in travelling the world,

but also in daring to sit at home with one's thoughts for a while, risking encounters with

certain anxiety-inducing or melancholy but also highly necessary ideas. Without the shield

of busy-ness, we might bump into the realisation that our relationship has reached an impasse,

that our work no longer answers to any higher purpose or that we feel furious with a family

member who is subtly exploiting our patience. The heroically hard worker isn't necessarily

the one in the business lounge of the international airport, it might be the person gazing without

expression out of the window, and occasionally writing down one or two ideas on a pad of

paper.

The point of ‘doing nothing' is to clean up our inner lives. There is so much that

happens to us every day, so many excitements, regrets, suggestions and emotions that we

should - if we are living consciously - spend at least an hour a day processing. Most of

us manage - at best - a few minutes - and thereby let the marrow of life escape us.

We do so not because we are forgetful or bad, but because our societies protect us from

our responsibilities to ourselves through their cult of activity. We are granted every

excuse not to undertake the truly difficult labour of leading more conscious, more searching

and more intensely felt lives.

The next time we feel extremely lazy, we should imagine that perhaps a deep part of us is

preparing to give birth to a big thought. As with a pregnancy, there is no point hurrying

the process. We need to lie still and let the idea gestate - sure that it may eventually

prove its worth. We may need to risk being accused of gross laziness in order one day

to put in motion projects and initiatives we can feel proud of.

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