“Still, laziness manifests itself most commonly in people via their expectations of how much labor they will have to expend in life.
Let me state that again because this is a very important point and lesson to learn about humanity.
Laziness manifests itself most commonly where people have a view, ideology, or life philosophy where “X” amount of sweat, labor, and toil is going to be required to sustain them through their life. When you introduce a course correction, advice, or just plain reality, that course correction almost ALWAYS requires that person expend WAY MORE effort and energy in their lives than what they were expecting. And they simply do not have the courage, spine, or mental strength to admit it AND commit to it.“
Just yesterday my wife, working at the food bank, was sworn at because there was a line up and a bit of a wait.
Good discourse on one of the seven deadly sins.
Nailed it. Have had similar experiences with multiple extended family members – and they always want a magical solution that involves being able to make the same decisions that brought them into a world of hurt but somehow provides them different outcomes. After seeing it play out over and over again, I’ve come to the conclusion that this is the root of so many people supporting the concept of “equality of outcomes” – because simple “equality of opportunities” still requires a major amount of effort to be expended to turn the opportunities into outcomes. So much easier to just use the government to confiscate property from your neighbours than to produce value yourself.
I’ve also come to the conclusion that I am not in a position to provide help and support to these people. Every single one of them we have tried to provide support to not only wants a free ride, but they are also envious of what my wife and I have achieved. They are completely blind to the relationship between the education and hard work that we have completed – not to mention the care, time and effort put into parent our highly-functioning children – and the material and familial blessings that we enjoy. And when we have tried to assist them with strategies to create structure in their lives, pursue training/education, and make decisions that are tied to long-term goals – we have gotten vitriol, accusations of being overly judgemental, theft of our property, and verbal and physical threats to our persons. So we have had to cut them loose.
I still hope for the best for them – but what I’ve seen over and over again is that situations that would constitute rock bottom for myself – and would force me to reconsider decisions and make a course correction – are considered tolerable by these people, and not worthy of reflection or change. We truly seem to be living in different worlds. And yet I am starting to think that these people are becoming more and more the norm in society, and more and more of a political force that will “naturally” support left of center policies and parties. (Enjoy the decline – I guess…)
this is really good stuff.
my 2 cents:
I admit to having a lazy streak. but, it has for instance led me to a number of superb innovations in previous careers that allowed me to engage my lazy streak via the time saved.
I never seemed to focus on the volume of work involved, that’s why I could never do estimates worth a hoot.
Im retired now and can indulge my lazy streak all I want. BUT projects STILL get done, just only when I feel like it. perks of retirement eh?
otoh I am STILL going to the exercise room and there it’s a different story. I tell the 20something the real battle is NOT the biceps, gluts, abs, wtfever. the REAL battle is in yer head to DISCIPLINE yourself and blow past the pain, fatigue, munchies, boredom, time retraints up the wazzoo and do the workout ANYWAY.
but that’s always been where the ‘battle’ is in most of civilization’s endeavours, right?
I come from a long line of work ethicists. siblings include lawyer, professional photographer, teachers, business owners, licensed tradesman, forestry mgmt consultant for the BC native bands.
THAT is why e-v-e-r-y one of us own our own place, sanctuary, ‘castle’. WORK and LOTS OF IT.
my 1st full time job paid, get this, 1970, the pricely sum of a buck 80 an hour.
yup.
operating 10 million dollar mainframes, cutting my teeth in IT, concluding the reason for such paltry compensation they musta spent it all on the hardware. BUT, in short order the sit’n led to a 30+ yr career in IT and loadsadough pouring into my bank acc’t.
nobody listened to me either on how to pull it off . . . . . .