On Laziness

There are two kinds of laziness. The first type drives you to find the easiest, fastest way to get things done, while the second just looks for excuses to avoid doing anything at all.

That first kind—the laziness that seeks out the path of least resistance—can be a hidden strength. It’s the urge to streamline, to make the work less tedious and more efficient. This is the kind of laziness that makes you want to automate repetitive tasks or rethink a process so you’re not wasting time on the same thing over and over. It’s the lazy impulse that motivates you to create a macro to save yourself the trouble of editing 40 lines one by one. Instead of slogging through unnecessary work, this kind of laziness pushes you to make things faster and smoother for the future. It’s the type of laziness worth bragging about.

Then there’s the other kind of laziness—the kind I can’t stand. This is the lazy that shows up when you just don’t want to do something and will look for every possible way to avoid it.

If your laziness means putting off a task only you rely on, like laundry, that’s your choice—you’re the one living with the consequences. But when others are depending on you, making excuses to dodge responsibilities isn’t just lazy; it’s disrespectful. It’s unfair to the people counting on you to get things done, and it’s a waste of their time and effort.

In short, there’s a productive kind of lazy that helps us improve, and then there’s the lazy that leads to shirking responsibilities. If your laziness drives you to make things better and more efficient, embrace it. But if it fuels excuses to avoid meaningful work, especially when it impacts others, please try to do better.