6 ms·

"Lazy" is just another way of saying that you're not doing something somebody else thinks you should be doing. Nobody is lazy at playing video games or eating a

"Lazy" is just another way of saying that you're not doing something somebody else thinks you should be doing. Nobody is lazy at playing video games or eating a favorite food. If you like doing it, you do it. You can't be lazy. You can only be lazy in some kind of context where you or others judge you and find you wanting. So two pieces of advice. First, stop judging so much. Do what you love doing and don't feel the least bit guilty about it. Second, find things you love doing that generally make you a better person over time and do those things. This might require trying out new things every weekend for a while. Once again, don't judge yourself; instead find things you truly love that you feel are also good for you. There are plenty of these things for everybody, and each person has his own mix. Never feel like you have to have somebody else's. A lot of commenters here are using the mountain metaphor. I'd like to say the same thing a different way. Stop being so goal focused and instead become habit focused. You don't want to accomplish some big goal, all you want to do is do fun stuff that makes you a better person. As a result of that, you'll probably accomplish some cool goals. But you'd never do that if you started from zero and tried to guilt yourself into striving towards some goal you couldn't care less about. Habits are easy to change. The trick is to try new things and start with really, really small changes. Most of life is Zen anyway. You either enjoy doing things and die or you suffer and die. It's your choice.

Strom 6y ago
> Habits are easy to change. I agree that habits are key to success, but I've also found that habits are extremely hard to change. That's why they are so powerful. Once you're in a habbit of doing something it's very hard to fall off that track. This goes both ways too, because once you have a bad habbit, life can get miserable.
- DanielBMarkham 6y ago
  I used to think exactly the same thing. I found in my own experience that this was because I was thinking of habits in too broad of terms. The trick was thinking of very small habit changes, not huge ones. I found this book interesting, "Tiny Habits". The author does a much better job of explaining this than I probably can. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0358003326/ https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0358003326/ (Also note that one of the common definitions of addiction is where you want to do things but cannot because of some habitual behavior. Only you can judge whether that's the case or not, but I would think that's a different type of problem than regular habits)
sumedh 6y ago
> Habits are easy to change The chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.
codegladiator 6y ago
> Nobody is lazy at playing video games or eating a favorite food Have you met me ?
SquishyPanda23 6y ago
> stop judging so much IMO this is the best advice here. The root issue seems to be anxiety, self-love, and judgment. if your experience of love as a child was conditioned on performance metrics, then any time you go to solve a problem you have to deal with a whole ocean of emotion and trauma that others don't have to deal with. It will take some work to understand and get past it, and my advice would be not to go it alone. Perhaps find a professional therapist who can help to get started.
- diegoperini 6y ago
  This! When we are physically ill or have an acheing tooth, we seek help from professionals and I bet unless it's a chronic disease, these professionals always have a way of treating it by: 1) Doing a check up, 2) Applying a short term solution (comforting medication, cleaning the infection etc), 3) Giving good advice for long term well-being. The mind deserves the same level of attention and care. We don't need to wait for a crippling depression to finally act. Depression is the disease of not being able to act afterall. Living a normal life itself is an enough reason to see a therapist. I don't believe a god or participate in any religion. But I admit that there was a time when more people went to see their religious community leaders to seek help, even for very basic problems. That was a kind of proto-therapy at its infancy. We lost that with modern civilization and contemporary psychology is still considered a luxury instead of a necessity.
austincheney 6y ago
> Nobody is lazy at playing video games or eating a favorite food. I cannot disagree more. You can be lazy about something that brings enjoyment. Laziness is stagnation without regard for enjoyment or perceptions. In other words it is the opposite of ambition or progression. For example you can enjoy playing video games and yet become lazy about it through a lack of effort in that a decline of related goals does not necessarily translate into lower interest or participation. Spinning the subject into something entirely unrelated, such as sensitivity or self-esteem, completely misses the point and could actually be really harmful advise. If you wish to focus upon or improve enjoyment, self-esteem, or emotional well being the do so with great deliberation but not because you have confused those with effort. —- Think of mental laziness as a lack of mental exercise. Mental exercise, such as tough decisions, actually burn more calories and impact your overall physiology. The only way to fight mental laziness is to increase your own self awareness with a goal for self improvement over time, like working out the rest of your body. Some helpful tools are reminders, taking notes, reviewing prior decisions, and advice from other people. To fight mental laziness I recommend focusing on these criteria: * criticality - don’t be afraid to ask questions and seek greater learning * originality - try something new. A new approach may require a far lower effort and yet may cause anxiety. Confront and appreciate that anxiety directly as part your increased self-awareness * empathy - empathy is the cognitive exercise of perceiving the situations of other people. Do not confuse it for sympathy, the process of sharing an emotional response. Empathy requires deliberate effort and often does not result in sympathetic state * deliberation - own your decisions. Take credit for all decisions without fear. If you are afraid to associate a decision with your reputation then somebody will make the decision for you. It is better to make a wrong decision early than to put that decision off to a future time. A wrong decision in the short term results in learning that can result in corrective decisions that would otherwise be absent.
- ath92 6y ago
  The way I view it, Daniel's point was to focus less on what other people expect of you, and to think less in ways like 'will this help me progress in my career'. Both are examples of extrinsic motivation. Instead, reframing your goals in terms of serving an intrinsic goal (e.g. 'I do this because it is interesting', or 'I do this because it helps my community') has been shown experimentally to improve longer term persistence at achieving those goals [0]. [0] https://lirias.kuleuven.be/retrieve/517626 https://lirias.kuleuven.be/retrieve/517626
koheripbal 6y ago
> "Lazy" is just another way of saying that you're not doing something somebody else thinks you should be doing. "Lazy" can also be a way of saying you're not doing something _YOU_ think you should be doing. I agree that other people calling you "lazy" is a projection of _their_ priorities, but the term is also applicable in you describing _yourself_.
mrtb 6y ago
> If you like doing it, you do it. This attitude seems to overlook that there can be a tension between present and future fulfilment. There are things you can do (or avoid doing) now that will make your life a lot less enjoyable later on. Activities that 'make you a better person over time' often require effort, discomfort, or sacrifice of some kind in the present (exercising, studying, therapy, etc...). I don't think it is a good idea to maximise pleasure in the present - at least not at the expense of future pleasure - but to maximise the total pleasure you get out of your life, which will often mean doing something right now that you don't find intrinsically rewarding.
- noteventwocents 6y ago
  IMHO, this relates to your own personal way of attributing value. Future happiness holds more value for you personally for whatever reason - this is great! i am happy for you. an alternative view point which is also sometimes correct is that future happiness holds zero value as you may never get it. I don't know whats really going on but i basically agree that laziness is not a thing. whether its explained by different weighting of future values or different weighting of the value of doing nothing (also highly rewarding) i think is a moot point. The advice given by the original comment to me holds true regardless. Also the way it is stated is especially important (as i think anyone who has benefited from such advice would see): step 1: beating yourself up doesn't work, you need a logical argument against that to help your brain adjust, step 2: find a way into doing things without a set end goal in mind, this is to learn the pleasure of doing the thing, not getting to the goal.. that way you are triggering different value / reward calculations in the brain. Please note i firmly believe there is no one explanation that will work for everyone, you have to factor in their view points and biases while finding the specific language that will fire the right neurons for that person... we are all hear to share perspectives in the hope that they are of value to someone else.
  - shicky 6y ago
    Any advice on finding a working logical argument? I find myself stuck in unhelpful loops sometimes i.e. Do I enjoy my job? Do I have a sense of purpose in my job? I realise the answer will be personal and only I can provide it but I'm consistently failing and it's impacting my mood
throwawaymsft 6y ago
Thank you so much for sharing this. A lot of people will knee-jerk react with "push, push, you're worthless, push" and I have deep appreciation for this wiser attitude.
wolco 6y ago
Sadly I am lazy about playing video games. Have a baseball sim open for a week but I keep choosing a nap.

Strom 6y ago

> Habits are easy to change. I agree that habits are key to success, but I've also found that habits are extremely hard to change. That's why they are so powerful. Once you're in a habbit of doing something it's very hard to fall off that track. This goes both ways too, because once you have a bad habbit, life can get miserable.

DanielBMarkham 6y ago
I used to think exactly the same thing. I found in my own experience that this was because I was thinking of habits in too broad of terms. The trick was thinking of very small habit changes, not huge ones. I found this book interesting, "Tiny Habits". The author does a much better job of explaining this than I probably can. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0358003326/ https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0358003326/ (Also note that one of the common definitions of addiction is where you want to do things but cannot because of some habitual behavior. Only you can judge whether that's the case or not, but I would think that's a different type of problem than regular habits)

sumedh 6y ago

> Habits are easy to change The chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.

codegladiator 6y ago

> Nobody is lazy at playing video games or eating a favorite food Have you met me ?

SquishyPanda23 6y ago

> stop judging so much IMO this is the best advice here. The root issue seems to be anxiety, self-love, and judgment. if your experience of love as a child was conditioned on performance metrics, then any time you go to solve a problem you have to deal with a whole ocean of emotion and trauma that others don't have to deal with. It will take some work to understand and get past it, and my advice would be not to go it alone. Perhaps find a professional therapist who can help to get started.

diegoperini 6y ago
This! When we are physically ill or have an acheing tooth, we seek help from professionals and I bet unless it's a chronic disease, these professionals always have a way of treating it by: 1) Doing a check up, 2) Applying a short term solution (comforting medication, cleaning the infection etc), 3) Giving good advice for long term well-being. The mind deserves the same level of attention and care. We don't need to wait for a crippling depression to finally act. Depression is the disease of not being able to act afterall. Living a normal life itself is an enough reason to see a therapist. I don't believe a god or participate in any religion. But I admit that there was a time when more people went to see their religious community leaders to seek help, even for very basic problems. That was a kind of proto-therapy at its infancy. We lost that with modern civilization and contemporary psychology is still considered a luxury instead of a necessity.

austincheney 6y ago

> Nobody is lazy at playing video games or eating a favorite food. I cannot disagree more. You can be lazy about something that brings enjoyment. Laziness is stagnation without regard for enjoyment or perceptions. In other words it is the opposite of ambition or progression. For example you can enjoy playing video games and yet become lazy about it through a lack of effort in that a decline of related goals does not necessarily translate into lower interest or participation. Spinning the subject into something entirely unrelated, such as sensitivity or self-esteem, completely misses the point and could actually be really harmful advise. If you wish to focus upon or improve enjoyment, self-esteem, or emotional well being the do so with great deliberation but not because you have confused those with effort. —- Think of mental laziness as a lack of mental exercise. Mental exercise, such as tough decisions, actually burn more calories and impact your overall physiology. The only way to fight mental laziness is to increase your own self awareness with a goal for self improvement over time, like working out the rest of your body. Some helpful tools are reminders, taking notes, reviewing prior decisions, and advice from other people. To fight mental laziness I recommend focusing on these criteria: * criticality - don’t be afraid to ask questions and seek greater learning * originality - try something new. A new approach may require a far lower effort and yet may cause anxiety. Confront and appreciate that anxiety directly as part your increased self-awareness * empathy - empathy is the cognitive exercise of perceiving the situations of other people. Do not confuse it for sympathy, the process of sharing an emotional response. Empathy requires deliberate effort and often does not result in sympathetic state * deliberation - own your decisions. Take credit for all decisions without fear. If you are afraid to associate a decision with your reputation then somebody will make the decision for you. It is better to make a wrong decision early than to put that decision off to a future time. A wrong decision in the short term results in learning that can result in corrective decisions that would otherwise be absent.

ath92 6y ago
The way I view it, Daniel's point was to focus less on what other people expect of you, and to think less in ways like 'will this help me progress in my career'. Both are examples of extrinsic motivation. Instead, reframing your goals in terms of serving an intrinsic goal (e.g. 'I do this because it is interesting', or 'I do this because it helps my community') has been shown experimentally to improve longer term persistence at achieving those goals [0]. [0] https://lirias.kuleuven.be/retrieve/517626 https://lirias.kuleuven.be/retrieve/517626

koheripbal 6y ago

> "Lazy" is just another way of saying that you're not doing something somebody else thinks you should be doing. "Lazy" can also be a way of saying you're not doing something _YOU_ think you should be doing. I agree that other people calling you "lazy" is a projection of _their_ priorities, but the term is also applicable in you describing _yourself_.

mrtb 6y ago

> If you like doing it, you do it. This attitude seems to overlook that there can be a tension between present and future fulfilment. There are things you can do (or avoid doing) now that will make your life a lot less enjoyable later on. Activities that 'make you a better person over time' often require effort, discomfort, or sacrifice of some kind in the present (exercising, studying, therapy, etc...). I don't think it is a good idea to maximise pleasure in the present - at least not at the expense of future pleasure - but to maximise the total pleasure you get out of your life, which will often mean doing something right now that you don't find intrinsically rewarding.

noteventwocents 6y ago
IMHO, this relates to your own personal way of attributing value. Future happiness holds more value for you personally for whatever reason - this is great! i am happy for you. an alternative view point which is also sometimes correct is that future happiness holds zero value as you may never get it. I don't know whats really going on but i basically agree that laziness is not a thing. whether its explained by different weighting of future values or different weighting of the value of doing nothing (also highly rewarding) i think is a moot point. The advice given by the original comment to me holds true regardless. Also the way it is stated is especially important (as i think anyone who has benefited from such advice would see): step 1: beating yourself up doesn't work, you need a logical argument against that to help your brain adjust, step 2: find a way into doing things without a set end goal in mind, this is to learn the pleasure of doing the thing, not getting to the goal.. that way you are triggering different value / reward calculations in the brain. Please note i firmly believe there is no one explanation that will work for everyone, you have to factor in their view points and biases while finding the specific language that will fire the right neurons for that person... we are all hear to share perspectives in the hope that they are of value to someone else.
- shicky 6y ago
  Any advice on finding a working logical argument? I find myself stuck in unhelpful loops sometimes i.e. Do I enjoy my job? Do I have a sense of purpose in my job? I realise the answer will be personal and only I can provide it but I'm consistently failing and it's impacting my mood

throwawaymsft 6y ago

Thank you so much for sharing this. A lot of people will knee-jerk react with "push, push, you're worthless, push" and I have deep appreciation for this wiser attitude.

wolco 6y ago

Sadly I am lazy about playing video games. Have a baseball sim open for a week but I keep choosing a nap.