Laziness Personified!!
The question of “laziness” in human nature is not a new one and we can find arguments both in favor and against it. People often try to define the term “laziness” as something [a state of mind] which is opposite [antonymous] to “hard work” (which is off course a subjective thing to say the least!). To define the laziness, one had to dig deeper into the way human operate and not just confine to these dictionary entries. Laziness for one can be hard work for someone else and vice versa and the debate goes on (essence behind a subjective matter)… Anyhow here I shall try to bring some of my thoughts on this human trait/behavior in general rather than discussing a specific context. The point here is, to analyze the psyche of humans, and not to delve deep into those psychological/philosophical processes to find it out. Anyone can complicate a matter but there are only a few who can simplify it (kind of related quote, you will see).
Let’s say that humans are by nature “lazy” and whenever an event prompt them to start working on a thing… they tend to do it in a manner to extract out a pattern[process] from the task at hand and then repeat[iterates] over it again & again to solve the task[laziness] at hand. Take the example of your daily routine of going to office from home; for the first few days you tend to think and try to find the better (again a subjective thing but normally economics, time, effort etc are the measures to help us find the best) way to reach office but after these initial necessary effort you put in to find the best (again subjective!!) possible path to reach there… you tend to repeat it.
Yes, we adapt to the changing conditions but as soon as we get used to it (got a process) they try to go back into the lazy “state” (or will try to find a way to go back into it). Iterating over a thing is kind of a false sense of busy-ness where we have minimal usage of our mind and mind is busy but doing nothing productive. The mind knows the pattern to follow (and it is best at following patterns – in various dimensions) and will do it as long as you want to… While staying in this state will help in the relaxation [relief] from the initial effort you put it. But this repetition/iteration will ultimately arose another feeling in minds lesser bound by the environmental (and other social/economical/personal etc) factors to get out it [boredom state]. The first consequence of this state, you tend to loss focus (or in other words laziness creeps in) and as a result… lack of attention/courtesy/commitment for the task at hand… A case is built (inside your mind) against it and we strive to get our self out of that state. Coming out of the state is not always easy and people used to do different things that can some time give them the sense (may be false, dil ko behlana) of satisfaction but unless and until a proper justification… the resistance will be there.
Now look at your surroundings (or may be within yourself), majority of people iterating over the daily tasks and you can find a very few who have been using the mind in constructive [productive] manner (most of the times). That is one reason why a normal person will not be able to use up even (5%) of his mind capacity in his life-time (waste off course!). There can be tasks where the repetition [may be tedious-ness] is necessary but that should be an exception rather than a norm. The actual productive work is where all our action are under the influence of mind in one way or the other and the mind through contemplation/meditation find better(may be new) ways to do a task at hand. For me, (with laziness on a %age scale) a person is performing a lazy act if mind is not involved [or is in the background, following a pattern]. The more one uses the mind in a productive [constructive] manner, the farthest he/she will be from the laziness tag.
