This Word is a Toxic Label and a Cultural Weapon

How one word keeps us overworked and overwhelmed.

Photo by cottonbro studio

“I’m lazy,” was her go-to excuse. It’s why she wasn’t thin, she’d say. Her rationale was if she wasn’t so “lazy,” she’d workout more and be thinner. It was her excuse for most of what was wrong with her life.

When she wanted things and couldn’t achieve them — writing magazine articles, winning an award for her work, saving money — she attributed it to not working hard enough.

Anytime she took a break, and most of the time when she didn’t take one, she proclaimed, “I’m so lazy.” When she had a daughter she began saying, “She’s so lazy!”

Threatened with the “lazy” label when she was young and malleable, it hardened in her like palm prints in concrete. As an adult, she said without thinking about it like you might utter the Lord’s Prayer. “Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done. I am lazy …”

Was she?

This “lazy” person had two, sometimes three waitressing jobs in college along with a full course load.

After college she worked her nine to five and kept a cocktail waitressing job at night because the tips were so good. You know those people who keep getting promoted because they…