I've hit a rough patch lately where I give in to laziness more than I'd like. It's not something I want to fool myself into believing, "You needed that break". There are times when I just get rebellious and don't want to do something I know I ought to do.
Lately, I've been particularly lazy about creating. I wrote my first non-fiction book, "The Charm of Confrontation: The Life-Changing Benefits of Being Frank" and it totally spent my energy. Now, I've been listening to podcasts, watching videos, reading bits of other people's stuff, but I've been really slacking in my own creating for the past few weeks.
I actually wanted to write a couple of blog posts before this, but I came down with a bad case of "lazy bones". Now, I could rationalize and say, "But you just wrote a book! That was a lot of work. You owe it to yourself to relax!" But, as depicted in Proverbs 22:13, there'll always be an excuse to delay doing something. This got me thinking about my spiritual DNA and my connection to Eve.
Let's review the Eve story. Eve was asked by the serpent, "Did God really say 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?" Then Eve corrected, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.'" The serpent then says, "You will not certainly die," and essentially goes on to say that eating the fruit will make you like God, knowing good and evil.
I don't know the time it took for that thought to grow into an action plan, but I suspect she mulled over what the serpent said while gazing at the fruit for a while. And who's to say how long "a while" is. This is conjecture, but while Adam was working the land Eve was probably indulging this new idea of God lying about the fruit. She was being lazy.
Rather than go directly to God to clarify, she just indulged this new idea until it led her to defy God and eat the fruit. Not only did she eat the fruit, but she mustered the energy to get Adam to eat the fruit too! Eve was being lazy when she didn't work through the feelings this new information the serpent had given her stirred up. She could have gone to God and got advice about what the serpent said; or she could have gone to Adam, but she took the serpent's word as truth and acted on it. She wanted to be like God. She didn't want to have to go through channels, she wanted what she wanted on her schedule.
I can be like Eve when I want what I want by my schedule. Sometimes I just want to rest with no consequence. When I'm in that state, I can lazily surf the web or scan TV channels with no purpose in mind. I become like a sponge, where I'm just soaking in whatever I come across and snapping to judgment because of it. It takes mental energy to think through these things. Ain't nobody got time for that! I'm just "vegging out." I know it's not productive, but I want to do what I want to do for a change.
More often than not, indulging these lazy phases leave me feeling frustrated. The time wasted makes me feel like an unproductive loser. Like Chantalle Blikman says in her article, 5 Ways to Get Energized and Motivated When You Feel Lazy, I can get overwhelmed by thinking of all the things I want to do or goals I want to set. Focusing on fewer things to pursue, seems more achievable and therefore less immobilizing. I feel cluttered in the head when I try to tackle too many new ideas. So it's to my benefit to pay close attention to what I let my mind take in and what I take on.
What works for you when you're tempted to be lazy?