Be a very proactive sloth

No matter what stage of life you're in. You will have criticized yourself more than once for something you should have accomplished long ago.

Likewise, I have no doubt that you have projects in mind that, for reasons beyond your control, you have been postponing due to unavoidable daily demands.

You dream of illustrating your articles for the platforms where you make digital life. To create your animated and interactive avatar for the Metaverse that is beginning to gain importance. Or learning to speak Mandarin Chinese because you consider that in the future, it will be relevant in an increasingly smaller world thanks to technology.

Yes, these preceding considerations are simply echoes of myself. Perhaps, you feel partly reflected, and you say to yourself: we are not so different. Maybe, you will self-reproach for the lost time and see circumstantial culprits. And if you do a mea culpa: you will conclude, like me, that you are (really) lazy.

Don't beat yourself up so much, my friend. Being lazy is part of our human nature. It is even wise to be lazy since it contributes to conserving: your energy.

Yes, I'm not kidding at all. If physics theorists are not wrong, following Newton: we live in an entropic universe. That is a universe that loses energy and heading toward chaos.

Yes, I think I hear the argument: energy is neither created nor destroyed: It is only transformed.

I do not intend to enter into a philosophical debate about this. Sure, thinkers by trade already discuss multiple arguments for or against unintelligible speeches and writings reserved for the learned.

I only want to state that laziness is not detestable per se.

Some very active lazy people achieve what they long for by applying the law of least effort.

Law of least effort.

Don't think I'm making fun of you! I say it very seriously and with conviction.

It is better to work once; than a thousand times doing the same thing.

I think you already have a clear clue about what I mean.

We all want to have something or become someone important, but in reality, you know well that one needs to work hard on them to achieve them.

However, many (if not most) see work as a modern form of punishment and slavery. An obligatory burden that must be dragged with pain and that separates you during the execution from true happiness.

Yes, I hear again a counter-argument based on satisfying work: that which you enjoy. 

Does a musician suffer when he composes a melody, or a painter complains when he paints a portrait of his beloved or does a writer grumble when he recreates a scene in words?

I wonder if a construction worker suffers when gluing the blocks of a wall. 

Here you will notice that the difference is in the attitude and the feeling of accomplishment.

The point is to achieve the goal. And it is here where ordinary lazy people fail.

In many things, I have been an ordinary lazy person. And to top it all off: A lazy person, conscious of the waste of opportunities that daily passed in front of me.

Well, no use complaining about this. One can remain an ordinary lazy person dreaming of objectives and goals that one will never achieve unless one changes one's attitude.

Big goals are achieved by achieving small aligned goals.

You'll think, "...I got it. You're suggesting I become a workaholic!"

No! I like laziness too. Of course, proactive laziness.

Is there any such nonsense? You will say with some reason.

Yes, I will answer you forcefully.

The computer or device you are using right now to read me; is a masterful example of how someone is very lazy. But determined not to keep repeating the same steps, uses their intellect to comply with the law of minimum effort.

Subtracting what wastes unnecessary energy (by repetition) without adding value: is a heavy burden even for the most hard-working.

And how can this information help you turn ordinary laziness into proactive laziness?

Sometimes the most intractable problems are solved by simple and obvious actions. 

I believe in the power of habits and incremental behavioral changes. Of course, Smart changes don't require a lot of energy expenditure in the short term, but if measured over a long period save a lot of energy and achieve big goals.

Don't believe me! Tell me how long your education took. Did you enjoy the journey?

You see, sustained and focused effort achieves an impossible goal in the short term. No one has ever qualified as a doctor in a single day. On the contrary, behind graduation day. There were many days between theory and practice.

The lazy proactive spends time in theory so as not to repeat in practice the failures behind it.

As far as I am concerned. I will try to become proactive without giving up my lazy nature.

And you, what will you do?

A closing tip and thus begin to train our laziness: 

Prepare your environment for the instant development of simple actions that will lead you to your goals where you spend the minimum necessary energy. Let yourself go and be surprised. 

P.S. Although I wrote and published the article first in Spanish, this one you read, the revision and translation into English, was much more laborious for me. Perhaps, I am not complying with the law of minimum effort. But I felt I had to take it to other frontiers without transgressing my own principles of writing based on originality without falling into spam.

An original article by @Jnavedan

The thumbnail and all images generated by Stable Diffusion (CC01.0 license by Creative Commons)

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