Fighting Laziness

This post is also available in: Hindi Marathi

Beep, Beep, Beep… Snooze… and then… Ahh…I’m late again! Are mornings a fight for you?

Exercises… Not now… sure for tomorrow! Do you procrastinate?

Your words to a colleague or friend or relative… Promise! I will get back to you soon!

Sounds familiar? Is this how your day wears on? Are you fighting a losing battle against laziness?

Battle?! Is Laziness an enemy? Seriously, aren’t you exaggerating? You may question.

Not really. Laziness has the power to outweigh all your virtues and can possibly lead to your downfall. So, beware!

Before you find ways to overcome this recurring problem, let us first understand the difference between laziness and inactiveness. An inactive person may appear to be lazy but need not be. The younger generation today is rather inactive than lazy. How?

Well, when a particular task is boring or you are simply confused about the way to achieve it, you enter a state of inertia or inactiveness. This state pretty much appears like laziness on the outside. It is not the same though.

A student studies hard for his exams. But as soon as the exams are over, he changes his routine. He spends time chatting, browsing, watching late night movies, followed by late mornings. His whole disciplined schedule goes for a toss. Does this mean he’s turned lazy? No, but he simply suffers from a lack of inspiration. To lead an engaged and active life, he needs inspiration and clarity of purpose, which seem to be missing from his life right now.

If you look around, you may find that most people around you are not lazy; rather, they are inactive. Confusion is another reason that pretty much leads you to the same route of inactiveness. When you do not understand “what to do,” “how to do,” and “why to do,” you turn into a couch potato. When you are enthusiastic and filled with motivation, you cannot be lazy.

Listed below are some methods to help you effectively avoid the state of inactiveness.

Method 1

Parents can stimulate children by enrolling them in challenging or fun activities. They can help reduce the children’s screen-time (mobiles, tablets, and TV) by spending time with them.

Parents can delight children with stories or ask them to read stories aloud, coax them to take part in drawing, arts, or build a craft project, learn a new language, learn gardening, or create their own mini-terrace garden, play board games, chess etc.

They can be motivated to participate in various competitions that promote their capacity and energy level as there is a clear aim of winning. Incitement and an aim help build engagement.

Method 2

Sort out confusions. A confused mind remains out of focus and attracts laziness. In the case of persisting confusion, it is good to garner advice from a right and trusted person.

Method 3

In case you do not find a good advisor, pray to God. Praying is an indication to nature that you desire to be free from your confused state. God (or Nature) operates in various ways. You may find a book, or perhaps meet someone, or you may watch a program that helps clear your confusion. Nature has many ways to help. You just need to pray sincerely.

Let us now understand laziness borne out of lethargy. At times, many of us find ways to shirk work and take rest. If we’re prone to such tendencies and want to shed them, then the best method is self-observation. Tendencies like procrastination play out in the dark. Persistent self-observation brings such tendencies to light. They cannot then survive in the light of your vigilance. When we observe our tendencies for how they are adversely affecting our life, we will begin to consciously change our behavior.

We are our best friend. So, we alone can help ourselves out of the undesirable situations we may be in. Otherwise, we may spend the rest of our life in this manner. The choice is ours to make.

A lazy person finds pleasure in avoiding work. Work is a pain. Everyone pretty much wants to do something that gives them pleasure. This is a natural law. Hence, if you want to shed lethargy, you need to find joy in working. This will help you climb out of the state of inertia.

Focus on things or activities that give you pleasure. Contemplate. Ask questions and you will surely receive answers.

If you want to avoid some work, ask yourself: What pleasure am I deriving by avoiding this task? Do I really feel good by not doing this task? Mulling over these questions will help you realize that the pleasure you received from shirking work was momentary, while the displeasure of not accomplishing a task is much bigger. This will help in increasing your power of discretion and discerning between right and wrong.

Here are some more methods to overcome laziness.

• When you want to resist a task, tell yourself: Let me begin with a small part today. In this way, beginning with small portions of the task, you can eventually overcome the resistance and complete the job.
• If there are many tasks on your list, begin with those that you don’t like, because you will complete the ones you like anyway.
• If you are not in a mood to work, then be decidedly strict with yourself and do not get into any other entertainment like surfing TV or browsing WhatsApp. Do not give the mind a chance to divert its attention.
• If you find a particular task complicated and experience resistance, break the work down into smaller parts. This helps reduce complexity and makes doing the task easier.

Where there is a will, there is a way. So, if you harbor a desire to free yourself from the shackles of laziness, success will be yours. Accept your laziness and work on it vigilantly and relentlessly with understanding. You will surely win your battle against laziness and lead an active and happy life.