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Today I'm going to talk about laziness and other
self-destructive mechanisms that
sometimes overcome us.
Laziness is difficult to define but it is a type of inertia or lack of energy that
you experience when you are in a certain comfortable situation
and you want to look for a
way to pass through a certain difficulty
to reach a goal that we want. When speaking of laziness,
when we feel a lack of willpower
to make an effort to attain
certain things that we don't want
or aren't interested in
or that aren't going to benefit us,
is an inappropriate use of the word. Laziness is
lack of energy
or demotivation to confront an obstacle that
that after an initial period of discomfort, will allow us to reach
something that we really want because if there
was no final objective, it
won't be worth the individual's effort.
An example could be the following:
someone decides to wake up early - 6am -
to go for a run before
going to work. Of course
this idea of running is something that they like and wish to do -
or at least they like the IDEA of running
or of exercising and
getting into shape.
It is an activity that they would like to do
but the problem is that they are in a comfort zone when the alarm goes off,
they are in their cozy bed
and they have to get up early than usual,
go through a period of difficulty,
or a period of discomfort in order to reach
the place where they will exercise and
only after this will they feel really good. So laziness
is that force that works against
you when you want to get out of bed when the alarm goes off.
It is difficult for us to imagine
that this doesn't exist at all in human adults despite
the fact that in children, laziness
appears only
in relation to school, the need to study,
in other words the laziness for studying is similar to
laziness in adults who need to wake up in the morning; they know that studying will lead to better results in school
they know that the initial effort is good for them
but the inertia to run avoid that
boring task and continue watching TV,
or playing computer games, is much more pleasant that sitting down and
picking up a book that you know you have to study.
Laziness is always
this lack of energy to begin
a task where the final result is in your best interests but
there is an intermediate phase that involves some type of
sacrifice or difficulty.
I repeat that I don't want you to have the idea that laziness
refers to an individual who doesn't want to pass through a difficult phase when
the final objective is
something that they don't want. It is to attain something that
they want and thinks is good for them.
This is what Freud called the victory of
the reality principle over
the pleasure principle - the pleasure principle is
an immediate attitude - to
stay in bed is much more inviting that getting out of bed to exercise.
This would be the victory of
immediate pleasure to continue
in bed where it is comfortable and the principle of reality
is to give up this immediate pleasure in favour of
greater benefit or even pleasure
that it will occur in the future. Discipline
is that rational force that makes us
more mature and emotionally adult
to confront the situation
of giving up a comfortable situation
with immediate pleasure or benefit and replace it with a greater future benefit.
The ability to give up something now for a greater future good
defines a emotional maturity
and the adhesion to this principle of reality - or in other words
that it is better to have a bag of candy one month from now
then one piece of candy right now. A child prefers
one candy now than a bag of candy in the future because they don't have the ability
give up something right now for a future benefit
because they don't have the sense of perspective
or the question of laziness versus discipline
or the ability to foresee the future benefits.
When you foresee the future benefits
together with discipline you will probably gain greater strength
than laziness if you are moved by
a constructive posture.
In practice, to act in the name of
laziness or permit laziness to win,
in this duel with discipline and the forces of reason,
signifies the acceptance of
the mechanisms of self-sabotage and destruction dominating
those things that induce us to construct something.
Destructive mechanisms impede us from constructing something;
from sacrificing to reach something that we want.
It is important to reiterate that it is not to achieve just any objective
but to achieve an objective that WE want. The rejection of something we want
is self-destructive.
It is also self-destructive when an individual
does the inverse, when they procrastinate or
putting off those things they want
to achieve in terms of studying or
completing a project, where they always put it off
and put it off until the deadline
is so short that it is impossible to complete or is done poorly.
This constant putting things off is part of the self-destructive
self sabotaging attitudes and we need to be
very alert about all of these self-destructive mechanisms.
They are strong and powerful and much more present in our lives
then we know. Another linked mechanism
to self-destruction and sabotage is when things
are going well and we give up in the middle
for reasons no one understands. For example we are
dieting or changing our eating habits. This
starts to show results; we start to lose weight;
everyone says how great we look
and almost immediately it seems there is a wish to eat more
and we start to sabotage the good results;
we need instead to re-double our efforts
rather than relaxing our efforts. So pay attention to
laziness, putting things off,
because these are part of self-destructive
processes. Laziness is not a good thing; it is only destructive.
The right and mature thing is to be disciplined
and resist immediate gratification in favour of something
better in the future. Well, that's all for today.
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