Three Cheers for Laziness

Three cheers for laziness? What in the heck does that mean? You hear the word lazy and you immediately get a negative connotation. The classic picture of laziness is an apathetic person, wearing their pajamas, endlessly lost in screen time, with an ashtray full of butts and beer cans scattered around.

But maybe laziness isn’t laziness at all. Procrastination, stubbornness, resistance to getting things done- whatever you want to call it – all come from fear. It is the kind of fear that we all carry and that we all deal with in different ways – the fear of showing up for life and being ourselves. Some of us cope with it by getting terribly busy; some of us cope with it by being overly successful and burning ourselves out; some of us cope with it by our compulsions and some cope with it by simply shutting down, which we call laziness. So maybe laziness isn’t something to judge at all.

There is another aspect of laziness we need to look at. In our doing, doing, doing society, we very rarely get off the treadmill and simply open into being. If you are sitting around in your backyard, just gazing out at life, some may call that laziness, but some may recognize the absolute necessity to unhook from ceaseless doing and instead, relax into simply being.

You could also settle into being through screen time or reading a book. Just like relaxing in your back yard, you are not trying to go anywhere or do anything or accomplish anything. All of these allow your inner world to sort and organize itself. Since you are focusing on something other than yourself, this organizing can go on inside of you without interruption.

A good example of this happened after a retreat I lead in Hawaii many years ago. I usually stayed a day after everybody left to settle in and reconnect with myself. On this retreat we all decided to go swimming the dolphins in Kona the day after the retreat, so a friend and I drove over to Kona and checked into a bed-and-breakfast.

The next morning, I woke up in overwhelm. I had a full day planned with the people from the retreat including dinner that night and I knew that instead of being busy, I needed to be quiet. It takes a lot of energy to lead a retreat and I was tired to the bone. I was unsettled enough that I cancelled the day, crawled into bed and started reading a novel that was laying on the bedside table. It took about the first 30 pages before I became aware of my breath again and then gradually, I began to be able to meet myself – to be with the tiredness and all the feelings that came with it. Slowly my heart began to open again, and I could connect with myself exactly as I was. This was so recharging that I ended up meeting everybody for dinner and having a delightful time.

Thich Nhat Hahn, the wonderful Buddhist monk, teacher and author, did a turn of phrase on the quote, “Don’t sit there. Do something!” Instead, he said, “Don’t do something. Sit there!”  What he is inviting us into is the phenomenal healing power of simply being. We have forgotten that life is a rhythmic river and if doing isn’t balanced with being we get ourselves into trouble. It isn’t laziness to rest and veg and maybe read all day or watch your favorite shows. Yes, there are times it may extend into what looks like laziness but as we shared above, this comes from fear.

To give ourselves downtime is not only physically, mentally and emotionally healing but it is also where true creativity comes from. When we cultivate being, our mind settles down and the wisdom of creativity that is within us can finally get a word in edge wise. There is a wonderful quote from Agatha Christie that speaks to this. She said “I don’t think necessity is the mother of invention. Invention . . . arises directly from idleness, possibly also from laziness.”

This has been my experience. If I ever come to a place when I’m writing and I am not clear about where to go, I just ask life what it wants to say and then go do something else. And when writing is calling again, wisdom shows up that I could not have thought of on my own.

So, three cheers for laziness! Or rather three cheers for getting off the endless treadmill doing and giving ourselves permission to simply be so we can access the nourishment, healing and wisdom that comes from simply being.

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