Laziness is a lack of determination in carrying out an action and can affect anyone. Even if it is not socially well accepted, it can be useful at times. Especially when in front of us there is a heavy task and our resources are objectively few. In this case, laziness is activated to prevent us from uselessly wasting our energies and putting us in an uncomfortable condition.
Other times laziness can hide neurotic behavior, a fanatical search for perfection, an inner conflict so strong that it leads to paralysis.
Laziness serves to save energy
At the base, laziness is a survival mechanism, if our glucose supplies are insufficient, the brain will tell us to stop. To avoid finding yourself in a situation of scarcity that could upset the balance and good functioning of the entire body.
For example, imagine our nomadic ancestors who lived through periods of even prolonged famine. Instead of hunting day and night without the certainty of finding food, it was more efficient to wait and save their strength until they were sure they would find some animals to hunt. This energy-saving function remained anchored in us as it promoted the survival of the species.
While it originally had a useful function, it is also true that times have changed and now laziness often hides more than a momentary weakness or a shortage of resources. It often masks a fear, acts as a loophole, becomes a way out for not acting, for not taking certain responsibilities, for escaping from reality.
Laziness can hide the fear of failure
Only those who do nothing are never wrong – but they waste their life. Laziness can mask a fear of failing or making mistakes. Let’s think of the worst scenario that could happen to us if we got to work and often our script is so convincing that we don’t even begin.
Laziness sometimes hides a perfectionism so extreme as to prefer the sterility of inaction to vital movement. If ultimate perfection becomes an obsession, a neurosis, then human action is considered by its nature as fallible and therefore useless.
It should be borne in mind that perfection is not of this world. It may remain an ideal towards which to move our attempts but we must remember that even if it can direct us, it will always remain out of our reach. That’s why it’s important to learn how to enjoy the ride.
Our life already has a meaning now, it won’t have more of it when we have reached our goal according to our illusory parameters imbued with fanatical perfectionism. Better to live making mistakes than to wait for perfection and die without having lived.
Laziness which indicates the conflict between duty and will
Sometimes laziness is the consequence of an inner conflict between what we know we should do and what we would like to do. You can’t make up your mind and get stuck between the two, in an anxious situation that steals our energy and empties us internally.
In this case it is not a question of lack of willpower, because the willpower in doing is equal to the displeasure in performing an action that we do not like. And since the sum of two forces of equal intensity going in opposite directions is zero, you don’t go anywhere and get stuck in total apathy without knowing what to do.
It is not a question of serene inactivity but of an external paralysis that hides an extremely strong inner tension. Within us, anxiety increases until it leads to psychosomatic disorders – insomnia, migraines, stomach ache, inexplicable fatigue, etc. In this case, it is necessary to study carefully what is blocking us and find a compromise, a meeting ground between duty and pleasure to get out of the stalemate.
When laziness becomes a refuge
Laziness is able to feed itself, the less we do, the less we want to do. We feel tired without doing anything and boredom sticks to our days like chewing gum thrown on the sidewalk.
If we follow this trail, we will end up sinking into a limbo, gray and gloomy, with the danger of never leaving it. The question is, what drives us to remain imprisoned in that limbo? Often the reason behind that vicious circle is a desire to escape from a reality that we do not like or from which we have little hope of getting out, so we build an intermediate, illusory world that requires little effort.
At the cost of sacrificing part of our life in order to feel safe from the pain, it could cause us, according to our vision of things. We prefer to hide under the sheets instead of going to open the door to life knocking out.