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In my experience, people who focus on laziness are NOT saying the lazy person is irredeemable - they're usually saying precisely "You're choosing to be lazy and

In my experience, people who focus on laziness are NOT saying the lazy person is irredeemable - they're usually saying precisely "You're choosing to be lazy and you don't have to. Choose to be different!" Granted, they often don't think through how to do that, or why the person might be struggling to perform, but it's not usually a belief that the person is incapable of doing better.

RobertoG 5y ago
In my experience, people who focus on the laziness of others are trying to bring the focus at how they themselves are not lazy. There is something similar going on with overweight. What's so difficult? just eat less! look at me! It's a status game, instead of trying to help. Anyway, to say to somebody "don't procrastinate" is like given a guitar to somebody and tell them "just play!". Sure man, how?
- loves_mangoes 5y ago
  That's hard to want to believe. The problem is if you assume they're not trying to help, then either they need help (too), or there's not much we can do about it. I feel like a whole lot of people are trying to help, they're just really bad at it and they need help themselves. . Thankfully, psychiatry! Read a book, boys & girls & enby friends.
  - NateEag 5y ago
    > I feel like a whole lot of people are trying to help, they're just really bad at it and they need help themselves. Yes. This is exactly what I was trying to get across. Thanks.
pmoriarty 5y ago
"You're choosing to be lazy and you don't have to. Choose to be different!" This gets to the very important question of how much choice do we really have. People are the way they are because of how they were raised, their genetics, where and among whom they were raised and their life experiences. There's arguably some choice mixed in there too, somewhere, but how much real choice people have is debatable. If people don't have much choice in the way they are, it explains why they have a really hard time changing, and there's no sense in blaming them for something they can't change. Of course some people do change, but maybe that's because they were the kind of person who could, and other people are the kinds of people who can't.
loves_mangoes 5y ago
Thank you for trying to explain their thought process — I appreciate that, that's very kind! I appreciate that you're very empathetic, and I feel like not everyone else is. There's a whole lot of people who probably can't imagine what it's like to be somebody else. That's hard, isn't it? But when you tell lazy people not to be lazy, and they don't do it, then it almost sounds like you must either be calling them dumb, or defective. So that's why I feel like thinking of it as treatable is a nice and friendly middle ground. Which a lot of people don't seem to. That doesn't seem to be their impulse. Oh, they're lazy. Let's not fix that.

RobertoG 5y ago

In my experience, people who focus on the laziness of others are trying to bring the focus at how they themselves are not lazy. There is something similar going on with overweight. What's so difficult? just eat less! look at me! It's a status game, instead of trying to help. Anyway, to say to somebody "don't procrastinate" is like given a guitar to somebody and tell them "just play!". Sure man, how?

loves_mangoes 5y ago
That's hard to want to believe. The problem is if you assume they're not trying to help, then either they need help (too), or there's not much we can do about it. I feel like a whole lot of people are trying to help, they're just really bad at it and they need help themselves. . Thankfully, psychiatry! Read a book, boys & girls & enby friends.
- NateEag 5y ago
  > I feel like a whole lot of people are trying to help, they're just really bad at it and they need help themselves. Yes. This is exactly what I was trying to get across. Thanks.

pmoriarty 5y ago

"You're choosing to be lazy and you don't have to. Choose to be different!" This gets to the very important question of how much choice do we really have. People are the way they are because of how they were raised, their genetics, where and among whom they were raised and their life experiences. There's arguably some choice mixed in there too, somewhere, but how much real choice people have is debatable. If people don't have much choice in the way they are, it explains why they have a really hard time changing, and there's no sense in blaming them for something they can't change. Of course some people do change, but maybe that's because they were the kind of person who could, and other people are the kinds of people who can't.

loves_mangoes 5y ago

Thank you for trying to explain their thought process — I appreciate that, that's very kind! I appreciate that you're very empathetic, and I feel like not everyone else is. There's a whole lot of people who probably can't imagine what it's like to be somebody else. That's hard, isn't it? But when you tell lazy people not to be lazy, and they don't do it, then it almost sounds like you must either be calling them dumb, or defective. So that's why I feel like thinking of it as treatable is a nice and friendly middle ground. Which a lot of people don't seem to. That doesn't seem to be their impulse. Oh, they're lazy. Let's not fix that.