For Me, Laziness Is a Good Skill

Laziness has bad societal implications and can be a label with a racist, exploitative history. I would never call someone else lazy and one of my professors once chastised my graduate class of teachers in Title I schools for using the label “lazy” for students (I didn’t use it, but I definitely agreed with my professor).

And while the label is rapidly growing less and less acceptable, I can’t eliminate my inner programming and self-talk when I chastise myself for being lazy. I grew up in a family where I had to be seen working and being productive all the time, where many of the things I did for fun, including video games and watching TV, were considered lazy. I realize my family was just trying to look out for me, make me more disciplined, and make me prioritize my education above all else.

But I did internalize one lesson throughout my life: don’t be lazy. Throughout my childhood, I was seen as the hard-working and diligent sibling. I always held jobs. I couldn’t not work and I could never take a summer to not do anything.

I always had to be making money and hustling somehow. My brother, on the other hand, had the label of “lazy” stick with him — my parents would always tell him on summers he refused to work and played video games all day “why can’t you be more like your brother?”

I was the younger one. I was the model sibling. I was the one who refused to be lazy. And my brother was the one recharging from a hard semester at school. He took his studies very seriously and often obsessed over them. And the chastising of my parents often never really worked well because he’s the older sibling by several years.

Now, I realize it’s time to learn from my brother. He isn’t lazy. He knew when he needed to recover and recharge, compared to me, who always feels the need to hustle and be on go mode. My brother isn’t lazy — he had a lot going on and he’s struggled with his mental health. And the language and labels we use matter.

Anyway, for me, I don’t need to resist being lazy (as I define myself) like I used to. Instead, I did need more time to just do nothing, time to lay in bed, time to play games and watch TV. Laziness is a skill in that I manage my own energy, pace myself, go through the day and the week in a sustainable manner, and only really complete things when I need to.

It took me a long time to realize I would benefit from being lazier, at least the way I define the term. I will never shed my reputation as a super diligent and hard-working person who holds myself to high standards and expectations. But being on this vigilant, urgent, and high alert state all the time, on 100% flight or flight mode, is something I just couldn’t keep up.

An example, for me, is procrastination. I procrastinate not as a way to preserve my energy and only complete tasks I don’t want to do. I need to be ready, mentally and emotionally, and that’s when I take my work the most seriously.

Somehow, being lazier has made me more productive and improved the quality of my work. I take my rest and prioritization of myself more seriously. I have several points during the day where something needs to get done and it needs to get done right away, and the only way I can handle such a high sense of urgency and pressure is if I allow myself to recover and give myself grace.

I might feel like a zombie before I teach my classes. But when I do, my emotional and mental state rise to the occasion. It’s a strange phenomenon and you can say I work well under pressure — but the only reason I work well under pressure is that I’m not working under pressure every single second of every day.

For me, it’s not about sandbagging every single moment of the day and not holding myself to any expectations. It’s about being strategic about how much I can tolerate and do at a given time and planning out my laziness tactically. I’m aware I’ll need to be even better at this when I have kids, but I’m a human being just like anyone else. As much as I would like to be programmed to be a productivity machine, that’s not what I am.

Strategic laziness means prioritizing quality over quantity. I used to think I could stomach a limitless amount of pain and distress. I used to think of myself as a martyr, but at the end of the day, I’m no God.

As a runner, most of my runs are pretty easy and slow. 90% of the miles fall into the “slow and easy” territory. I used to go too hard in my training and try not to be what I perceived as lazy, but now I overperform instead of underperform. My training and practice are underwhelming — but my big performances go better than I planned.

Strategic laziness means knowing when to say no. It means listening to myself and knowing my limits. It means stopping and coming back to a task later.

Most people who know me would say I’m the antithesis of lazy. But that’s just an appearance. I’ve learned how to embrace laziness and harness it to step up when I need to. This is a society where we’re defined by our production and means of production, and that pressures us into overwork.

If you think American work culture has long hours and grueling conditions, you’ve never been to an East Asian country. When I worked in an organic chemistry lab in Japan, a couple people stood out for their refusal to work as long as everyone else. Some people would get into the lab at 9 a.m. and work until 1:30 a.m.

But one of my mentors came in at 9 a.m. and left around 5 to 6 p.m. He said he didn’t think the way many of his peers worked was effective. Yes, they always gave the appearance of living in the lab and doing a lot, but he didn’t think they were very productive. He spent time working in a U.K. lab where he worked normal hours but his advisor pleaded for him to take care of himself, get enough sleep, and not work an absurd amount of hours.

To his peers, he was seen as not as hard-working and possibly lazy. But he did fantastic research he won numerous awards for. In the time he worked, he was effective and committed to his work, and then he went home to his personal life and to spend time with his girlfriend.

I think societal critiques of laziness have classist and racist implications. And whenever we think we’re lazy, it’s often a sign of a deeper problem or a need that isn’t being met.

That’s certainly the case for me — when I’m lazy, I need to attend to a core need, like a need to socialize, a need to have fun, a need to rest, and a need to attend to basic living needs like food and water at the bottom of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

For me, laziness is always a sign. I might eradicate it from my vocabulary when talking about other people, but it’s hard to eliminate that critical self-talk.

But instead of being critical, embracing laziness as a skill has meant more self-compassion and being more accommodating of myself — that’s made me more effective, rested, and overall a better person who can serve God to the best of my ability.

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This post was previously published on Mind Cafe.

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