Laziness

[Unconditioned]

So this weekend I found myself not getting much done and I started to wonder why I was feeling so lazy. Some days it's out to conquer the world and others I don't even want to get out of bed.

 

I also noticed another post where a lot of other people seemed to have the same tendency. So I thought maybe we could discuss ways from a Taoist viewpoint to deal with laziness.

 

So here are a few of my personal observations which I'm interested in hearing other people's opinions on.

 

Feeling Lazy

When I'm feeling lazy, I tend to ignore responsibilities (e.g., laundry, bills, cleaning), think that the task is going to take a lot of time or be difficult. I spend a lot of time thinking about all the reasons I don't want to do ______ and all the reasons why I want to do something else. Then the famous "I'll get to it tomorrow, no big deal" thought creeps in and the procrastination has begun. Sometimes I also set much too high of a goal for the day and end up doing nothing. Then it all becomes a habit.

 

Getting it Done

When I'm forced to HAVE to get something done I reluctantly begin working. I mentally complain about what I'm doing for a bit.

 

But, after a while of getting stuff done there is a mental shift - I start to feel good about the fact that I'm not being lazy. Then when I'm done with whatever, I feel good. I feel like I've accomplished something.

 

Taoist View

The biggest personal observation is that it's all in my head, picturing how hard the work might be. The question is: how to make the mental shift towards the "getting it done", accomplished feeling BEFORE the work gets done rather than being tired before doing any work!

 

Maybe to go deeper than that, a better approach might be to drop both the "this is going suck" or "this is going to be awesome" attitude. Or maybe the best idea is to stop talking about not being lazy and just doing something

 

What do you feel like when you're lazy? How do you overcome it? What can help us overcome laziness from a Taoist perspective (especially when it's grip is strong)?

 

Edit: fixed grammar and shortened the post a bit.

Edited September 22, 2008 by Unconditioned

[steve]

I believe that Westerners, like myself, have been purposely conditioned by our society since birth to be slaves to the society and economic prosperity (mostly for the benefit of the elite). It sounds like paranoia and conspiracy crap but it is absolutely obvious from a particular perspective. A very small and beautiful book that showed me this perspective very clearly is The Happy Child by Steven Harrison. So we are profoundly conditioned to feel that not getting certain things done and not being busy is bad and we beat ourselves up about it and feel bad when we are not always busy. We call it lazy instead of leisure time or holiday time or just time. Look at animals when they have a full belly, that is what living is all about.

 

Meditation is the first time I understood that not only is it ok to stop, take a break, and not be productive for a change; it is important for human health and well being to regularly take that break. So I say, be lazy! Take some time for yourself whenever you feel that way. Enjoy that time. It is a healing and breathing time. It is your life, every precious and limited moment. Take at least a few to enjoy without any obligation or responsibility, even meditation! It's like my diet. I used to stress over what and how much I was eating and when. Now I try to eat what I crave when I want it and stop when I begin to feel full. Our body (intuition) tends to be more reliable than our intellect in such affairs, IMO.

 

That's my view. I think it can be looked at as consistent with Daoism in so far as it comes from a perspective of Wu Wei.

[zanshin]

I like Steve's post, but it is necessary to do bills and laundry at some point. I read somewhere that a goal of organization is not to be perpetually busy, but to put dull but necessary tasks on autopilot so you can then relax and enjoy leisure time without having guilt or anxiety over laundry or bills nagging at the back of your mind. I'm not always good at it myself, but taking care of these mundane manners in an orderly fashion does seem much more Tao than last minute stress and rushing around. Even some of the pop feng shui books (maybe someone here will have rec for a really good one) help with motivation- an environment with minimal mess and clutter does feel a lot better and it can be helpful to think of the process of making it so as a spiritual pursuit.

[Sloppy Zhang]

It's funny that when most people hear the word "lazy", there are lots of connotations for what you are doing... like perhaps you are sitting and watching tv, or playing video games, or staring at the wall, or not being productive in general.

 

At first thought, I'd say I'm lazy all the time. In fact, right at this moment I'm being "lazy", the thing is... I'm doing stuff! Usually it's reading something that is of interest to me, or working on a person project, and since I'm a new member of this forum, I'm searching through old posts, finding new links, and I'm actually reading and learning a LOT of new and interesting things.

 

xuesheng kind of hinted at it: we're conditioned to get certain things done by society.

 

I am getting lots of things done, yet I am lazy... because I'm not getting the right things done...

 

So just some thoughts.

[松永道]

The word in Chinese for laziness is lan (懒) or lansan (懒散). Lan means lazily or slowly. San means to disperse or scatter. From a TCM point of view, some people need more dispersing, but indeed, some need more collecting.

 

Dispersing and relaxing is the characteristic if xin (心) the Heart Organ Network; condensing and holding, the Kidney Network (肾). The Heart stores the Spirit (心藏神); Kidney stores the Will (肾藏志). The Heart's emotion is Joy or pleasure; the Kidney's, fear. In terms of the five elements, Water, the Kidney, restrains Fire, the Heart. Heart creates Earth (the earth network governs thinking), Earth restrains Water. When Water inadequately restrains Fire, Fire creates too much Earth, which in turn excessively retrains Water. In emotional terms, too much pleasure and thinking reduces the Will and the lazy Will indulges in too much pleasure and thinking. It's a vicious cycle.

 

Strengthen your Will.

 

You feel good to at work because it collects you. You contain your qi from dispersing. But, for now, you need to really push the Will to start working. A strong will restricts your indulgence in pleasurable activities. Pleasurable activities refer to any type of addiction. TV, sweets, drugs, sex, shopping, games, any type of pleasure seeking behavior. Restrict these and your thinking will naturally be less agitated. Meditation strongly tonifies the Kidneys and Will, in part because it quiets and collects your thinking.

 

The necessary attitude shift: working sucks.

 

It's not pleasurable. It's not supposed to be. But you gotta do it. It literally sucks. Why literally? Because it sucks your qi and Will back in. Too much thinking before a task will sap the Will. Do the required mental planning then without hesitation kick your own ass into motion.

 

 

 

P.S. The laziness the other posts refer to, I call outward laziness. What I'm talking about is inward laziness. The best Taiji players look outwardly very relaxed, but inwardly their Will is incredibly engaged. Should other people call you lazy, but you are exercising your Will, this is not laziness. This is a socially constructed misconception.

 

P.P.S. I wrote this but didn't include it because it broke the flow.

(... out of fear of the future, not having enough, being poor, etc, most of the previous generation works very hard. Though this was mainly bred into them by their parents who suffered WWII, the Great Depression, and other hardships. And as you go further into the past, you generally find more fear/working hard and less pleasure/laziness. The latest generation were born sons and daughters of affluence - free and encouraged to follow their hearts. Entertainment has reached perhaps it's highest level in all of human history. Information is too abundant. And we've had little to fear. Indeed, most kids these days feel entitled to an easy, affluent life without having to work for it.

In short, we've over corrected for the previous generations' deficits. The Greatest Generation was too tight, too Will driven. The current generation is too scattered, too pleasure driven...)

Edited September 23, 2008 by 松永道

[Sloppy Zhang]

The word in Chinese for laziness is lan (懒) or lansan (懒散). Lan means lazily or slowly. San means to disperse or scatter. From a TCM point of view, some people need more dispersing, but indeed, some need more collecting.

 

Dispersing and relaxing is the characteristic if xin (心) the Heart Organ Network; condensing and holding, the Kidney Network (肾). The Heart stores the Spirit (心藏神); Kidney stores the Will (肾藏志). The Heart's emotion is Joy or pleasure; the Kidney's, fear. In terms of the five elements, Water, the Kidney, restrains Fire, the Heart. Heart creates Earth (the earth network governs thinking), Earth restrains Water. When Water inadequately restrains Fire, Fire creates too much Earth, which in turn excessively retrains Water. In emotional terms, too much pleasure and thinking reduces the Will and the lazy Will indulges in pleasure and thinking. It's a vicious cycle.

 

Strengthen your Will.

 

You feel good to at work because it collects you. You contain your qi from dispersing. But, for now, you need to really push the Will to start working. A strong will restricts your indulgence in pleasurable activities. Pleasurable activities refer to any type of addiction. TV, sweets, drugs, sex, shopping, games, any type of pleasure seeking behavior. Restrict these and your thinking will naturally be less agitated. Meditation strongly tonifies the Kidneys and Will, in part because it quiets and collects your thinking.

 

The necessary attitude shift: working sucks.

 

It's not pleasurable. It's not supposed to be. But you gotta do it. It literally sucks. Why literally? Because it sucks your qi and Will back in. Too much thinking before a task will sap the Will. Do the required mental planning then without hesitation kick your own ass into motion.

P.S. I wrote this but didn't include it because it broke the flow.

(... out of fear of the future, not having enough, being poor, etc, most of the previous generation works very hard. Though this was mainly bred into them by their parents who suffered WWII, the Great Depression, and other hardships. And as you go further into the past, you generally find more fear/working hard and less pleasure/laziness. The latest generation were born sons and daughters of affluence - free and encouraged to follow their hearts. Entertainment has reached perhaps it's highest level in all of human history. Information is too abundant. And we've had little to fear. Indeed, most kids these days feel entitled to an easy, affluent life without having to work for it.

In short, we've over corrected for the previous generations' deficits. The Greatest Generation was too tight, too Will driven. The current generation is too scattered, too pleasure driven...)

 

Wow... I must say that was very intense!

 

And a lot to think about. I don't know too much about TCM, but that was a very good explanation, I appreciate it a lot

[松永道]

Wow... I must say that was very intense!

 

And a lot to think about. I don't know too much about TCM, but that was a very good explanation, I appreciate it a lot

 

If these boards were equipped with graffiti so I　could draw pictures it would be much clearer.

[lotusbud]

Hi Unconditioned,

 

Laziness happens to be one of my favorite topics. I've been working on it a lot for a long time. And while I haven't overcome laziness completely I've improved a lot. Here are some of the practical things that helped me:

 

Take care of yourself. Start from the center and gradually expand outwards. Try to understand the problem on the level of the universe and your body simultaneously. The end goal and right now have to blend.

 

Meditate.

Eat a healthy balanced diet, and less rather than more. Get some exercise.

Nourish all your social relations and especially take care of your parents. Maybe volunteer. Find out why this relates to laziness.

 

List what is hanging over your head: doing taxes, clearing debt, writing a thesis, getting the car fixed, unfinished novel, forgiving that person, returning that favor.... Whatever it is you have to clear it off. The less of those things you have the more your momentum will change, they are chains.

 

Change your environment, find a better place, move the furniture, get rid of the furniture, throw away 5 things and give away 5 more on a regular schedule for a while. Reduce, reduce, reduce!

 

In short be good at letting a lot of things go. Be good at losing.

 

Find out what you want. What can you contribute to the world? When you have an answer, make it clearer. Find out what is the very next step.

Whatever it is you are doing, try to achieve a very clear result. Try to make clear a beginning and an ending. For instance, if you are learning something from old posts on this forum narrow your focus and after spend 15 minutes writing a quick and dirty summary of a topic for yourself. With questions for further study.

If you are unwilling to do this do you really have enough interest to be wasting your time on it?

 

At the same time, run from perfectionism, just do your best without fuss and move on. If you put a timer on for 15 minutes daily and tidy things up, in a month your whole place will be clean, (provided you don't have kids).

 

When starting something you have been avoiding I have found it helpful to become fuzzy.

Fuzzy and unclear. Become plain. You have been thinking about why you hate doing that thing or what you would rather be doing. It's actually easy to let a bit of fog descend so that you can focus on the task at hand. Who is it doing the task anyway? And who wants to delay starting until a snack and a cup of tea is had?

 

Slowly develop routines. You will probably try to accomplish too much once the wave of motivation hits you. It isn't going to be that simple. Do things at a steady pace and welcome the rest when it arrives but don't search for it. Believe that the change is actually taking place right now. Be optimistic about that slow and subtle change no matter how small and enjoy it because it is going to change your whole life.

[CosmoGeek]

Great post, lotusbud. Laziness is my biggest issue, and I think what you wrote may help me. I'll put some things into practice starting right now.

[Spiritual_Aspirant]

So this weekend I found myself not getting much done and I started to wonder why I was feeling so lazy. Some days it's out to conquer the world and others I don't even want to get out of bed.

 

I also noticed another post where a lot of other people seemed to have the same tendency. So I thought maybe we could discuss ways from a Taoist viewpoint to deal with laziness.

 

So here are a few of my personal observations which I'm interested in hearing other people's opinions on.

 

Feeling Lazy

When I'm feeling lazy, I tend to ignore responsibilities (e.g., laundry, bills, cleaning), think that the task is going to take a lot of time or be difficult. I spend a lot of time thinking about all the reasons I don't want to do ______ and all the reasons why I want to do something else. Then the famous "I'll get to it tomorrow, no big deal" thought creeps in and the procrastination has begun. Sometimes I also set much too high of a goal for the day and end up doing nothing. Then it all becomes a habit.

 

Getting it Done

When I'm forced to HAVE to get something done I reluctantly begin working. I mentally complain about what I'm doing for a bit.

 

But, after a while of getting stuff done there is a mental shift - I start to feel good about the fact that I'm not being lazy. Then when I'm done with whatever, I feel good. I feel like I've accomplished something.

 

Taoist View

The biggest personal observation is that it's all in my head, picturing how hard the work might be. The question is: how to make the mental shift towards the "getting it done", accomplished feeling BEFORE the work gets done rather than being tired before doing any work!

 

Maybe to go deeper than that, a better approach might be to drop both the "this is going suck" or "this is going to be awesome" attitude. Or maybe the best idea is to stop talking about not being lazy and just doing something

 

What do you feel like when you're lazy? How do you overcome it? What can help us overcome laziness from a Taoist perspective (especially when it's grip is strong)?

 

Edit: fixed grammar and shortened the post a bit.

 

 

I heard that the energetic cause of laziness might be a weak muladhara/basic/root chakra. The muladhara chakra provides our primary rooting to earth, while the small chakras at the soles of the feet provide secondary rooting to the earth. Since our degree of rootedness to the earth determines our practicality, or vice versa, practicing rooting exercises might solve the problem of laziness.

[Unconditioned]

Thank you all for the very constructive posts.

 

I've incorporated some of the techniques/suggestions in the last few days and I've had good results very quickly!

 

So I thought maybe what I've done could help other people as well. Here they are:

 

- Start doing housework right when I get home from work before sitting down. My goal is 15 minutes a day... once I've started I've been doing about 45-60 minutes (when I saw how nice my place looked I wanted to keep going for a bit!).

 

- I've tried to be more encouraging in my relationships simply by listening intently and trying to make other people smile. This has increased my overall wellbeing and makes me want to spend more time with other people than I have (which is not often).

 

- I've taken a 'game of inches' attitude at work. Every task / project I'm working on I've framed it as an opportunity to do things better, different, with more enthusiasm, etc.

 

- I've tried to 'clear' those things that I just don't want to deal with one or two at a time (ex. getting the car fixed, dealing with bills, etc.). By doing things gradually it hasn't been as daunting to think about.

 

Once the inertia shifted from laziness to dilligence it has become much easier to get things done without being lazy and without being overwhelmed. I enjoy my downtime but I enjoy my 'uptime' just as much.

 

Thank you all very much!

[Stigweard]

At one stage of my life I would have said I was lazy (my parents certainly did ). But the real cause of my inertia was that I really just didn't care. I had become so disillusioned with the world around me, so disillusioned with my own existance that I couldn't really give a stuff over what went on around me. I really couldn't care what happened to me.

 

My inner flame began to wane and diminish.

 

Maybe you were like me, growing up with that vague, nagging sense that, "God there's got to be more to life then this crap!"

 

Fortunately I never let that inner flame completely go out. I always held onto the hope that, "Yes" there is in fact more to life, that "Yes" there is a deeper meaning to the apparent trivialities, and that "Yes" there was truly 'magic' in the world.

 

As is the common case, my Kung Fu training led me to the Tao and learning Taijiquan and Qigong open the doors to the incredible world of greater awareness and Qi.

 

Now, even as I right these words, I am immersed with unending gratitude for whatever guiding forces have led me to where I am today. In complete wonder at the awesomeness of this incredible gift of life, I know that the only justification I have for being alive, the only way I can repay this amazing experience, is to live each and every moment to its absolute fullest ... to grasp every moment and give the best of myself acting to the fullest of my knowledge and power.

 

We are all Tao and Tao is us. Remove any one of us and the Tao diminishes. It is, in my opinion, our sole duty and obligation to dig deep within and excavate our true potential, our true nature, our Teh, and bring it forth into the world. And by doing so we enrich Tao and Tao enriches us.

[metzu]

So this weekend I found myself not getting much done and I started to wonder why I was feeling so lazy. Some days it's out to conquer the world and others I don't even want to get out of bed.

 

I also noticed another post where a lot of other people seemed to have the same tendency. So I thought maybe we could discuss ways from a Taoist viewpoint to deal with laziness.

 

So here are a few of my personal observations which I'm interested in hearing other people's opinions on.

 

Feeling Lazy

When I'm feeling lazy, I tend to ignore responsibilities (e.g., laundry, bills, cleaning), think that the task is going to take a lot of time or be difficult. I spend a lot of time thinking about all the reasons I don't want to do ______ and all the reasons why I want to do something else. Then the famous "I'll get to it tomorrow, no big deal" thought creeps in and the procrastination has begun. Sometimes I also set much too high of a goal for the day and end up doing nothing. Then it all becomes a habit.

 

Getting it Done

When I'm forced to HAVE to get something done I reluctantly begin working. I mentally complain about what I'm doing for a bit.

 

But, after a while of getting stuff done there is a mental shift - I start to feel good about the fact that I'm not being lazy. Then when I'm done with whatever, I feel good. I feel like I've accomplished something.

 

Taoist View

The biggest personal observation is that it's all in my head, picturing how hard the work might be. The question is: how to make the mental shift towards the "getting it done", accomplished feeling BEFORE the work gets done rather than being tired before doing any work!

 

Maybe to go deeper than that, a better approach might be to drop both the "this is going suck" or "this is going to be awesome" attitude. Or maybe the best idea is to stop talking about not being lazy and just doing something

 

What do you feel like when you're lazy? How do you overcome it? What can help us overcome laziness from a Taoist perspective (especially when it's grip is strong)?

 

Edit: fixed grammar and shortened the post a bit.

 

Laziness is a symptom of boredom

Without a full life everything we do is work

Get up go out hug a tree, talk to a bird, smell a flower,wrestle your dog,walk with your sweetheart holding hands down a forest pathway. Go to a job you enjoy. Or just run away from it all, sometimes we wake up and find we have choosen to have so many responsibilities we feel trapped, and yet we created the entire scenario that we are living out. If you are american the fantasy of the american dream, will give you more responsibilities then normally 10 people could deal with and be happy. May be sometimes it is time for a reevaluation of what we think we truly want as a responsibility we are capable of handling without it infringing on our own peace of mind. Sometimes we get so busy fixing people, places and things outside of ourself,we have no time to fix ourselves.

[mYTHmAKER]

I was taught to take care of things right away.

Otherwise they build in your mind and become monumental and can be overwhelming.

So when something needs to be done I just do it and it's gone.

Laziness or inertia come from the mind

Edited September 28, 2008 by mYTHmAKER

[Pranaman]

zhan zhuang, i've only practiced Yiquan's interpretation of Zhan Zhuang. but this practice absolutely made me less lazy, and has been improving my performance in school, which I used to hate. Practice, when it starts burning, let it burn for 20 seconds. gradually increase.

[BigJonMud]

Mythmaker has a great strategy!

 

But, for me- I often feel slave to my compulsion to do, do, do and complete thngs that aren't even important.

Even when I have everyhting done, I get anxiety about somethig else that I should be doing.

 

 

Daoism+ yoga brought me the ulitmate reframe. That is, that mediation= the highest acitvity one could perform. Now, lazyness can allow a little mindfulness to emerge.. silently observing the whole process, and then BAM- another reason to feel great and continue remaining present.