I have to make a confession to you: I’m a lazy sack.
I like it when I have nothing to do and I can just sit and look at the trees. I love my soft armchair and if it whispers to me: Hey, stay seated, you can bring the trash down tomorrow. And when someone is looking for a volunteer, my hand is not the first to rise.
Is that a problem when you’re on the comfortable side of life?
No, thankfully, it’s not basically a problem.
The two sides of laziness
Your own convenience can even be a gift
- if you accept the thing as it is,
- if you don’t let the followers of hard work and Calvinist work ethic upset you
- and if you show ingenuity.
I say here on purpose “can be a gift” because for many, your own comfort is not a great thing. Because in order to achieve something in our society, you sometimes have to get going somehow, you have to work, act and do something. At least it is a way to success. And if you are too comfortable to do it and do only the bare essentials, then of course you won’t get many of the good things that you often achieve through hard work and effort: you get no recognition, no respect and ultimately no money.
But of course hard work and hard work don’t always pay off. Many people know this, who are working their way out of the low wage sector and still cannot get on a green branch. And just because you work a lot and well does not mean that you get recognition from your superiors. Hard work and hard work help in some way, but obviously they are not enough.
Laziness – seen differently
Let’s take a closer look at the opposite of hard work, laziness. A lazy person strives to make as little effort as possible and to use as little strength and energy as possible. Basically, it is like a modern car that only consumes 4 liters per 100 kilometers. But here you do not say that it is a “lazy car”, but you call it economical, environmentally friendly or economical.
Laziness is the endeavor to achieve a lot with as little effort as possible. And many of mankind’s inventions have their origin in someone wanting to save time, effort and energy. In other words, because the inventor was probably lazy.
So laziness – or striving to do more with less – isn’t fundamentally a bad thing. It can be a driving force for many good things in life. Postpone against deferment and eternal dreams . For experiences of success, progress and the implementation of what is important to me. I have a sense of achievement from now on .
Laziness as the mainspring
However, this requires a few additional ingredients: ingenuity and a goal on which you can focus your ingenuity.
For example, if my goal is to find a new job, then I can be very diligent and send my application to 200 companies and always follow up diligently. This can lead to success, but many people are unsuccessful with this diligent strategy because they don’t have the right things on their résumés.
As a lazy and resourceful person, you would probably spend more time doing a little more about yourself and your real strengths. And then you would do a little research on the requirements of your own dream company. And then you would see where you still need a little training. And then one would draw attention to 5 to 10 of the most suitable companies; ideally in a way that bypasses the usual recruitment processes, otherwise you will get lost in the crowd of applicants.
Being lazy goes well when …
If you are lazy and still want to be successful, you have to compensate for this by thinking and being resourceful. If you are lazy and still want to achieve something, you have to use your strength carefully and you have to think a lot and ask the right questions. Instead of doing a lot of hard work, you have to do the right thing in the right order.
Successful lazy people also know the magic of investment. Investing means something like:
To be lazy later, you have to overcome yourself and make an effort. And to do that, you have to find out how you tick and how you can motivate yourself and take action despite the inherent laziness. That doesn’t sound very intuitive, but that’s why I said yes: if you want to get along as a lazy person, you have to use your head, think, develop ideas and be resourceful.
A formula that sums it up
It is absolutely ok to be lazy. At least when it comes to hard work. But you must never be lazy in the head.
Let me put it in a few equations.
Lazy hands + lazy head = 🙁
Hardworking hands + lazy head = 😐
Lazy hands + hardworking head = 🙂
And the ultimate are hard-working hands + hard-working head. But hey, you can’t have everything in life 😉
I personally am an energy-saving model. And what I lack in irrepressible energy, I try to compensate for with thought and ingenuity. In the first few decades of my life, I have struggled with being lazy. But now I’ve made my peace with it.
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