Laziness Does Not Exist

by Devon Price

For Kim, who taught me that if a person’s behavior doesn’t make sense, it’s because I’m missing a piece of their context

we remain convinced that having limitations makes us “lazy”—and that laziness is always a bad thing.

I’d start to feel guilty for not using my time in more productive ways. I should be out with friends, I’d tell myself. I should be working on creative projects. I should cook myself a nice, healthy dinner.

after putting so many tasks on my plate, I would inevitably flame out and become depressed or sick.

Friend, same

I was terrified that anytime I took a break or drew a boundary, I was being lazy.

Her once-beloved hobbies, like witchcraft

Dude. Witchcraft is not a hobby, it’s a religion.

social epidemic, something I’m calling the Laziness Lie.

that leads many of us to believe the following: Deep down I’m lazy and worthless. I must work incredibly hard, all the time, to overcome my inner laziness. My worth is earned through my productivity. Work is the center of life. Anyone who isn’t accomplished and driven is immoral.

The Laziness Lie is the source of the guilty feeling that we are not “doing enough”; it’s also the force that compels...

Research on productivity, burnout, and mental health all suggest that the average workday is far too long, and that other commitments that we often think of as normal, such as a full course load at college or a commitment to weekly activism, are not sustainable for most people.

the thing that we call “laziness” is often actually a powerful self-preservation instinct.

When we feel unmotivated, directionless, or “lazy,” it’s because our bodies and minds are screaming for some peace and quiet.

When we learn to listen to those persistent feelings of tiredness and to honor them, we ...

The laziness we’ve all been taught to fear does not exist. There is no morally corrupt, slothful force inside us, driving us to be unproductive for no reason.

your worst fear—that you are an irredeemably lazy person—is entirely misplaced.

Tired, burned-out people aren’t struggling with some shameful, evil inner laziness; rather, they’re struggling to survive

I heard that

The word “lazy” is almost always used with a tone of moral judgment and condemnation.

The people we’ve been taught to judge for “not trying hard enough” are almost invariably the people fighting valiantly against the greatest number of unseen barriers and challenges.

As a disabled person, I felt this

most human suffering is invisible

If I have an underperforming coworker, I have no way of knowing that their low motivation is caused by chronic depression. They might just look apathetic to me, when really they’re running on fumes.

It is I

The people we dismiss as “lazy” are often individuals who’ve been pushed to their absolute limits.

they’re working very hard. But because the demands placed on them exceed their available resources, it can look to us like they’re doing nothing at all.

We think our personal challenges—such as depression, childcare needs, anxiety, trauma, lower back pain, or simply being human—aren’t good enough excuses for having limits and being tired. We expect ourselves to achieve at a superhuman level, and when we fail to do so, we chastise ourselves for being lazy.

Our culture has us convinced that success requires nothing more than willpower, that pushing ourselves to the point of collapse is morally superior

The Laziness Lie has three main tenets. They are: Your worth is your productivity. You cannot trust your own feelings and limits. There is always more you could be doing.

The stakes of not being productive are dire. As a result, many of us live in a constant state of stress about our financial and professional futures—which means feeling a ton of anxiety about how much we’re working.

Dude can read my mind.

We’ve had to trade our health for our financial or professional well-being, choosing between getting adequate time for rest, exercise, and socializing and logging enough hours to get by.

not out of paranoia but because we know just how economically vulnerable we really are.

We learn to neglect ourselves and see health as a resource we can trade for money

The Laziness Lie encourages you to ignore your body’s warnings, push through discomfort, and ask for as few accommodations as possible. And at the end of all that struggle and self-denial, there’s no reward.

No level of success grants a person the social permission to stop and catch their breath. We’re forever left wondering What’s next? What else?

By forever moving the goalpost and never actually allowing a person to be vulnerable and have needs, it’s setting us up for failure right from the start.

friends and loved ones

leaving their health, relationships, and years of their lives as offerings at the altar of hard work.

This understanding of the world has left many of us constitutionally incapable of caring for ourselves, let alone extending full compassion to others.

the Laziness Lie is so deeply ingrained in our culture

we have to look back centuries, into the origins of capitalism.

The value of hard work and the evils of sloth are baked into our national myths and our shared value system.

A productivity-obsessed form of Christianity evolved from the older, more Puritanical idea that work improved moral character, and it was pushed on enslaved people. 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.

As the Industrial Revolution changed the landscape of the country, with more and more Americans working long hours in manufacturing plants, the Laziness Lie was pushed even more. The wealthy and highly educated began to claim that poor whites also couldn’t be trusted with “idle” time.

one of the most prevalent legends in American culture became the tale of the single-minded, hardworking man who had created his own success

These myths,

carried with them a dark implication: if a person didn’t succeed, it was because they weren’t doing enough.

For people who believe in the Laziness Lie, things like economic reform, legal protections for workers, and we...

if we believe the world was created solely by independent people, we may come to think that there’s no need for us to be interdependent and compassionate.

It’s made many of us critical of other people and quick to blame the victims of economic inequality for their own deprivation.

In Avengers: Endgame,

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

This obsession with the strong individualist character has permeated our culture for decades.

teaches viewers that our skills and talents don’t really belong to us; they exist to be used. If we don’t gladly give our time, our talents, and even our lives to others, we aren’t heroic or good.