TOW#485 — Laziness
This text is inspired by an advert I saw made by school pupils, members of MASSUM (Youth Association of Secondary Vocational Schools in Macedonia), for a competition for best “video ad”. We, as Macedonia-Export, are part of the jury assessing pupils in several categories (competitions), and we also help them in the organisation and financing of the activities as much as we can. MASSUM’s 14th educational rendezvous was held on 12 and 13 April in Kičevo, and the wonderful young and creative minds there proved to us that there’s a youthful energy in our country that gives us hope for the future (unless they leave in the meantime, of course).
Their video presented an interesting perspective on laziness (based upon the research they had done). Their message is that even though laziness is generally seen as a negative human trait, and even a sin (according to some religious views), it is actually a characteristic of intelligent people that helps them to get motivated to work on bigger things and achieve greater successes.
In essence, intelligent people have developed a matrix in the brain that ignores minor tasks and information from their surroundings, which provide only small amounts of dopamine, in favour of greater challenges and complex tasks that both create more dopamine and stimulate the brain more. In this way, they achieve better results and greater success.
Nevertheless, whether laziness will have a negative or positive effect on us depends on a number of aspects related to its meaning and influence:
▪ Laziness — as in a lack of desire for life, apathy, depression or lack of energy to change something. It can be linked to reduced self-esteem, feelings related to societal insignificance, and so on;
▪ Laziness — as in Freud’s notion of the ‘pleasure principle’. According to him, we all instinctively strive towards achieving ‘pleasure’, as opposed to ‘pain’, in order to satisfy our biological and physiological needs. Basically, the negative connotations associated with laziness are due to this principle (or these people);
▪ Laziness — as in avolition: a severe lack of initiative to accomplish purposeful tasks. The reduced motivation is mostly associated with routine things (work, school, exercise…);
▪ Laziness — as seen by intelligent people (as is the case with the MASSUM pupils’ message);
▪ Or simply, laziness as in ‘positive idleness’. This is something I’ve coined, and it refers to working people when they are exhausted or overworked. Sometimes, you simply want to feel ‘lazy’ and just do nothing at all.
In any case, whichever way you look at it, and of course each of these points can be debated for hours on end (but I’m a bit too lazy to go into more detail at the moment), if we want to budge away from laziness and actually do something, we need some kind of stimulation that will bring us some pleasure, i.e. will secrete dopamine. The best way to achieve this is through: stimulation from external information, food, sex and any physical activity. Of all these stimulants, the most important and easiest to practice (according to all the analysis and research on laziness) is physical activity.
So, break the monotony of laziness and take up some physical (sports) activity asap!
Wishing you success with the changes to come,
Petar Lazarov
“Tip of the Week” Team member
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