Laziness Does Not Exist

by Devon Price

Even my doctor doubted I was as sick as I said I was. He made me record my temperature every evening, in a little journal that I brought to his office. We both discovered I’d been running a fever of 103 degrees nearly every evening. Even then, I still felt guilty about being such a bother. I couldn’t understand why willpower wasn’t enough to make me well.

if reading a single page in a book is too mentally taxing, you can take that as a sign that your brain needs to do something more relaxing for a while.

at the end of all that struggle and self-denial, there’s no reward. You never actually earn the right to take it easy,

It sets us up to expect full, eight-hour workdays of unbroken focus, followed by evenings filled with exercise, Instagram-worthy home-cooked meals, and admirable side projects.

They don’t skip doctor’s appointments, fail to get their oil checked, or miss days at the gym.

Our aspirations can climb and climb, but they’ll never hit the ceiling, because the ceiling doesn’t exist.

If you devote your life to serving other people and meeting their needs, the Laziness Lie will point out that you’re not working out enough, or that your home is a mess.

If you win a massive award or hit some other life-changing milestone, the Laziness Lie will smile politely and say, “That’s very nice. But what do you plan to do next?”

The word “lazy” first appeared in English around 1540; even back then, it was used in a judgmental way to mean someone who disliked work or effort.12 Many etymologists believe it came from either the Middle Low German lasich, which meant “feeble” or “weak,”13 or from the Old English lesu, which meant “false” or “evil.”

When we say someone is lazy, we’re saying they’re incapable of completing a task due to (physical or mental) weakness, but we’re also claiming that their lack of ability somehow makes them morally corrupt.

if a person couldn’t focus on the task at hand or couldn’t self-motivate, that was a sign that they had already been damned.15 This meant, of course, that there was no need to feel sympathy for people who struggled or failed to meet their responsibilities. By lacking the drive to succeed, they were displaying to the world that God hadn’t chosen them for Heaven.

This form of Christianity taught that suffering was morally righteous and that slaves would be rewarded in Heaven for being docile, agreeable, and, most important, diligent.

Enslavers made it a point to keep enslaved people as busy and exhausted as possible out of fear that idle time would give them the means to revolt or riot.

enslaved people who tried to run away from bondage were seen as mentally ill and suffering from “runaway slave disorder.”

By not accepting their proper role in society, they were demonstrating that they were broken and disturbed. This worldview became the foundation for American capitalism.

The wealthy and highly educated began to claim that poor whites also couldn’t be trusted with “idle” time.

See Nicole Rudolph’s video on hobbies

From the national myths of Paul Bunyan and Johnny Appleseed to the strong, independent cowboys on the silver screen to the memoirs of entrepreneurs like Conrad Hilton, one of the most prevalent legends in American culture became the tale of the single-minded, hardworking man who had created his own success and changed society through sheer force of will.

In these stories, the hero is always a strong white man who doesn’t need the support of anyone else; he’s usually a bit of a social island, with no close connections to other people and a disregard for society’s rules in general.

For people who believe in the Laziness Lie, things like economic reform, legal protections for workers, and welfare programs seem unnecessary.

From the films we watch to the YouTube videos that keep us company on our lunch breaks, we’re inundated with stories that praise diligence and individualism.

In Avengers: Endgame, Thor is made a laughingstock because he responds to an intergalactic disaster by becoming withdrawn, alcoholic, and lazy. The film also puts the actor in a fat suit, using his fatness to both indicate and mock how much worse his life has become. In the narrative of the film, it doesn’t matter that Thor has lost dozens of friends and watched an unimaginable disaster ripple throughout the universe. That’s not enough of an excuse for him to descend into a nonproductive, suffering state. A perfectly normal reaction to trauma and grief is rendered mockable and pathetic, and countless fat viewers end up insulted and dehumanized in the process, as do viewers with depression or addiction issues.

Films like The Matrix, Star Wars, and the Harry Potter series all emphasize the importance of their lead characters’ being “chosen ones” who must sacrifice everything in order to defeat evil.

Many of the most popular children’s TV shows of the moment, such as Dragon Ball Super and My Hero Academia, also focus on relentlessly hardworking people who exert themselves to the point of injury or pain.

Young children were regularly depicted as sustaining bloody, painful injuries on that show, yet they always continued to fight. At the time, I admired their dedication and wanted to be tough just like them.

Even more morally complex, modern children’s shows like Steven Universe and Avatar: The Last Airbender still teach children that it’s up to a singularly motivated individual to save the world.

Video game and comedy YouTubers often dabble in the same themes, talking about how devoted they are to their fans and how much time they’re putting into each project. Some streamers regularly fall asleep on camera, because their devotion to constantly generating content runs that deep.

Sometimes Black, queer twentysomethings like Rickey Thompson genuinely do ascend to fame and wealth because they produce excellent videos and work very hard. Yet for every Rickey Thompson there’s a Jeffree Star, a massively successful YouTuber and makeup magnate who lives in an opulent mansion while his employees toil away

The musical comedian Bo Burnham (whose career started on YouTube) describes this phenomenon very well: “Don’t take advice from guys like me who’ve gotten very lucky. Taylor Swift telling you to follow your dreams is like a lottery winner saying ‘Liquidize your assets! Buy Powerball tickets! It works!’ ”37

Our media rarely shows people setting limits, asking for help, or devoting their lives to the things that make them feel happy and safe. Of course, it’s much harder to tell a story about a happy person

As much as I’m troubled by the themes in many of these stories, I still get a rush from watching John Wick murder throngs of enemies with only a library book and sheer force of will.

There are rigid schedules and arbitrary deadlines that don’t take into account what else is going on in a student’s life.

Many of them enrolled in college as eighteen- or nineteen-year-olds, but then something got in the way of their graduating

Sometimes they just couldn’t focus on school or didn’t see the point in it. Unfortunately, many of my students absorbed the idea that they’re to blame for the challenges they faced. Many think they were just too “lazy” to finish school the first time around.

A few years ago, I was approached after class by an adult student named Maura. She had a couple of facial piercings and dyed hair—just like me. She had just gotten a new tattoo and wanted to show it to me. We talked for a bit about piercing and tattoos, and concerts we’d been to; she and I had a ton in common. Then she asked me how old I was. It turned out we were the same age. As soon as Maura realized this, she immediately started berating herself for having “not done much” with her life compared to me. She did it in a joking way, but I could tell it was coming from a place of genuine insecurity.

I do a similar thing when I discover a successful person who...

I feel threatened when a person seems to be “ahead” of me, yet I don’t tend to evaluate other people’s lives in that way.

Her twenties had been much more interesting and challenging than my own, yet she believed she’d done “nothing” with all that time.

At the same time she was taking my class, Maura was failing another course because her professor wouldn’t let her retake an exam she’d missed because of an emergency at her job.

Digital technology and social media fill our spare time with e-mails

guilt-ridden messages about what our bodies, homes, and lives ought to look like.

We get our news from phone apps and social media sites rather than printed papers, making it harder than ever to get away from upsetting images and distressing information.

Everywhere we turn, we’re told we’re not enough. And when we finally disconnect from this constant stream of shame and pressure, we often feel guilty for “disappearing” on our colleagues, family, and friends.

They’re somehow lazier and more awful than anyone in the world.

Each artist has to snatch up as many jobs as they can get, because they have no way of knowing what the future will hold. At the same time, they have to build a public reputation for themselves as relevant and cool.

Freelance jobs and gig work have replaced reliable full-time employment for many people, creating an environment of uncertainty and competition.

Digital tools like e-mail and Slack have eroded the boundary between home and the office, making it difficult to ever truly take time off.

Meanwhile, social media reminds us constantly of what other people are doing and accomplishing, making us all feel lik...

If your boss is constantly e-mailing you with questions and requests, you can start to feel guilty for something as simple as turning off your phone to go to sleep at night.

When exercise, activism, and even talking with friends is tracked and measured by phone apps, you may start feeling like you’re constantly letting people down.

“Wasting time” is a basic human need. Once we accept that, we can stop fearing our inner “laziness” and begin to build healthy, happy, well-balanced lives.