Lazy Is a Four-Letter Word

I think it’s interesting that the words busy and lazy are both four letters and make a buzzing sound on the third letter like a bee. In the first case, the bee is darting from flower to flower frenetically collecting nectar. In the second case, it is sated and reclining in its hive, catching up on some well-deserved z’s.

Among humans, the words busy and lazy have vastly different reputations. It is practically an obligation for a modern day adult to be, or at least pretend to be, busy at all times. On the other hand, to be lazy is to surrender your credentials as a functioning member of society. If you are not rushing from work to a meeting to a soccer game to a concert to a store to a museum to a party, you are not fully alive, is the impression that some people give.

Every once in a while — say, about six weeks out of the year — I have a lot going on, and I really am that busy. But the other 46 weeks I am disturbingly, flagrantly, outrageously lazy.

I am slothful, languorous, indolent and idle. I like to dally, dawdle, loaf and loll. And I feel guilty about it.

Let me tell you about a typical Saturday in my life. Usually I stay in bed (or as the British call it, “have a lie-in”) until 10:30 or so and read a Scandinavian mystery or other delectable fiction. Then I get up and think about going to the farmers market but don’t. I may go over to the sink and wash a dish or two. Then, at 11:00, I call Papi’s Grill down the street and order a small plate of nachos with cheese and beans. Picking it up may be the only time I go outside all day.

At noon I watch one of my favorite shows, “Lucky Dog” with Brandon McMillan, a handsome dog trainer with an intriguing right eyebrow who rescues a dog from the pound that is close to being euthanized. After teaching it the seven common commands (sit, stay, down, come, heel, off and no), and helping it overcome a few nail-biting behavioral obstacles, he matches it with the perfect family.

Then I usually watch an episode of “Snapped,” where some woman totally loses it and kills someone, usually her husband or boyfriend, for the insurance money or because she’s cheating on him or he’s cheating on her. That show makes me feel better about being single, which is one reason I have so much time to be lazy.

After watching “Snapped” I usually go back to bed for three hours of sleeping and reading.

One of my favorite headlines ever was in The New York Times for a Sunday Routine column featuring the chef David Chang, that said “But It’s So Nice Inside.” He talked about how he’d rather stay inside on his day off even it’s a perfect day outside, and I feel the same way. The difference between him and me is that I feel guilty about it and he doesn’t. Sometimes when it’s sunny and 78 with a nice fluttery breeze I force myself to go outside and then I bump into all the other people who feel they must be outside and because I live in Park Slope I also bump into a lot of strollers until I become so annoyed that I scurry back to the peace and do-nothingness of my indoor lair.

Just because I am lazy, though, doesn’t mean I don’t want to accomplish amazing things. I do. I just don’t care to do it right now.

For decades I wanted to write a book, but I did something that social scientists said is common: I assigned all the work to my future self rather than my present self. My future self was miraculously going to clean up its act and suddenly be brilliant and disciplined. Well, that never happened, until finally I turned a certain age and my mortality stared me in the face. I was determined to write that book, and it turned out to be about the very topic of not being able to get things done because of laziness and procrastination.

Investigating this fascinating topic (in between long bouts of avoiding doing so), I made an important discovery, and it’s something I think I knew all along. In order to do things, it’s important to not do things, too, research shows. Our bodies and our brains need periods of down time in order to process our experiences into some kind of meaningful order.

I like to think that when I’m lying in bed on a Saturday that the neurons in the backroom of my brain are making unexpected and complex new connections that will lead to my next creative project.

But I can’t help continuing to berate myself for being lazy. It’s part of my identity; it’s part of my shtick, even. Sometimes I overdramatize how lazy I am so people will refute my claim — because I do get a lot of work done during the week, and I did manage to finish that book about procrastination in my spare time. Having a book contract was a big help. When I am accountable to other people —and especially when I have a deadline — I work like crazy.

I wish I could just own my laziness. Because when you think about it, laziness is simply living in the moment, but with a negative value judgment stamped on it. Remove the negative judgment, and it’s actually a very good thing — even a necessary thing, as long as it’s not taken to damaging extremes. And I think it must better than being too busy, which comes with its own kind of damage.

Perhaps I can be at the vanguard of rebranding lazy into a more positive word. But I don’t think so. It’s a precise combination of laziness and guilt that makes me who I am and finally gets me out of bed. And besides, taking on a campaign like that would be far too much work.

Phyllis Korkki is the author of The Big Thing: How to Complete Your Creative Project Even if You’re a Lazy, Self-Doubting Procrastinator Like Me, published by Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins and available for purchase from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, and your local bookstore.