Laziness is a symptom, not the illness. On one of the WhatsApp chats I'm on someone asked a great question about teaching kids not to be lazy. There was a lot of discussion about laziness being a built in character trait and how to combat that with motivation or enthusiasm. But I wanted to throw in another idea to tangle with based on what I've discovered in my long life of struggling with avoiding getting s#*t done... here's what I chipped in:
"Laziness is a behaviour that is often rooted in different types of feelings/thoughts. It's a response/reaction/coping mechanism similar to the fight/flight/freeze (it's more in the freeze catagory). The key with laziness would be to understand is it fear based (maybe if i don't do anything than I won't be at risk in some way, fear of failure, fear of rejection etc), is it anger based (i emotionally need to be taken care of and therefore i won't care for my self etc) is there a physical component (illness, depression, chronic pain, adhd paralysis, exhaustion etc) it can be rooted in hopelessness.... so many different roots for that same behaviour... so it's helpful to see laziness as the symptom, not the illness. No one is born lazy, but many develop it as a coping mechanism which can then seem like a part of our personality but it's not."
Curious what you all think? How do you view being "lazy"? Any other reasons you can think of for laziness to show up as a symptom of something else? If I tagged you it means I would love to hear your thoughts along with all the other amazing people that have chimed in so far… how do you deal with “laziness”?