The Construct of Laziness
I have been fighting against the identity of Lazy, my whole life. I’m not sure if it’s because fat bodies are standardly associated with laziness or just the fact that capitalism loves to make us think our value is in our productivity or perhaps its a combination of all of it - but it’s something I attempt to resist daily. What I mean is, I am no longer fighting the idea of laziness because I don’t think laziness exists. I think it’s a catchall term for avoidance, procrastination or lack of productivity but by chalking it up to laziness we are doing ourselves a disservice to figuring out why we are having such a hard time taking action.
Since coming back from Body Image Bootcamp and essentially restructuring my business away from being a photography business and more to being an educator my time is spent VEEEEERRRRRY differently than it was before. There is more time working behind the scenes to launch things than there is the immediate gratification of working one on one with a client. I mean, I get that in some instances when I am physically teaching classes - but for a lot of my stuff, it’s managing what’s online and coming up/creating new stuff and for that there is very little immediate gratification and it’s VERY easy for me to feel like I’m being lazy/not productive. So I remind myself that laziness is a construct made up to shame me into working when my body wants to rest, create, or percolate.
What this has created is this idea of “busywork” where I LOOK busy, but ultimately the work I am doing is not producing anything of value (but it looks like it does). I mean, so many of get into being entrepreneurs or work in general so we can have a LIFE, but when we create systems and business that do that for us, we still feel like we are being lazy if we aren’t cramming work into all hours of our day. It’s wild how many of us successfully create lives that give us our needs and STILL suffer to work more and harder despite the fact that we have everything we actually wanted - and a big part of that overwork is running from being considered/called LAZY.
So, if you are someone who also struggles with the identity of being LAZY and have a hard time defeating the shame that follows you when you sit down for a second, I want you to grab a piece of paper or the notepad on your phone and write out what the perfect day looks like to you. How would it start, who would you be with, what would you be doing, and how would you be doing it. Think big - its just a dreaming exercise. Once you have your perfect day established then it’s time to compare that to the reality of your days - how do they stack up. If you were doing those things in your perfect day, would you feel “lazy” or “unproductive”? If so, why? I know for me, while my perfect day does involve a wee bit of work - the work itself is fulfilling and only takes about 4 hours in an entire day - as it should - so that I can enjoy the rest of the day doing things that also bring me fulfillment, but not in a working way - things like walking outside, swimming, spending time with my nieces and nephews, reading, napping, taking photographs, doing art, etc. [Isn’t it funny how they’ve managed to convince us that restorative activities like napping, resting, relaxing make us lazy? But our bodies need them to be sustainable!]
I want to work in a way that gives me the live I desire and I want to live in a way that gives me the work that I desire - both of these things can happen but only if laziness gets kicked to the curb. We already have limited time on this planet, I don’t want to waste it feeling shame for something that I truly desire at least a little bit in my days: resting.
