I believe that laziness exists, as I have personally experienced it. However, I think the author is talking about reasons for avoidance, and short term comforting behavior that is long term destructive. It is a conversation worth having. I struggled a very long time as a "procrastinator" before I became just as industrious as I was "lazy". If, in my late teens and early 20's, I had the concepts to better understand the nature of my behavior, I might have been able to change it sooner. But, maybe not. IMHO seeing laziness as barriers for an otherwise productive person is a double-edged sword. The barriers might be real, but removing them might not have the intended effect. Sometimes we are self-destructive, and sometimes being self-destructive feels right. If you seek to empathize with a self-destructive person, and help them remove barriers preventing their "healthy" behavior, you may be disappointed to find that the person finds or even creates more barriers to obstruct their progress. There is even the potential that lending a helping hand diminishes the person's self respect and helps them dig a deeper hole. People that have experience with addiction and those that suffer it are very familiar with concepts of sufferers hitting 'rock bottom', having 'moments of clarity', and 'come to Jesus moments', and those that care for sufferers with 'tough love' or breaking off relations with the people they love for that person's benefit. Personally speaking, my "laziness" was not remedied by people helping me to remove barriers, although my parents tried. Quite the opposite. It was actually a few moments of clarity some time after my folks gave up on me, that resulted in new patterns of activity that transformed my behavior. I used to be very productive when in came to constructing MtG decks, a game of Civilization, or leveling up a character in a MUD. For me, I can point to a very specific moment, early in the morning in Boston. I was not happy with my pattern of laziness, self-destructive behavior and avoidance. I then made a mental list of people that I admired, and considered what they had in common. I concluded that they all had done difficult things. It was then that I decided that I would do difficult things, not as a means, but as an end.
What I am getting from this conversation is that maybe it is more honest and accurate if some people or their behaviors, are described as "unwilling" rather than "lazy." That is, there are some people who will not wash their dishes until they do not have a clean one left -- regardless of a lack of barriers in their way. What I have personally observed is that people are frequently unwilling to be so honest with themselves. In a case where a person is truly unwilling to do the needed task at hand, it is generally easier for them to dismiss their lack of action as "laziness" -- and more socially acceptable -- than admit they just truly do not care enough to clean up after themselves until it reaches a crisis point. And so long as they are living with someone else, typically their laziness or unwillingness to act until absolutely necessary means that the burden falls on the party who is willing to acknowledge a problem and act to solve it before it becomes an overwhelming issue. I am all for honesty. I prefer people who are truthful about what they are going to do (or not) over people who lie to me any day. However I have noticed that often, those who are willing to lie to me about their desire or ability to complete necessary actions -- let's say chores, or staying at home and sheltering in place during the time of CORONAVIRUS even when their friends are not -- in the moment that they make the lie to me, they are also making the lie to themselves. In fact, such a person may become offended when you calmly state your perceived truth, which may be that "you have promised me you would do X multiple times over an extended period and it has never happened." No amount of documentation will help you get this person to accept certain facts in these scenarios. The most dangerous person to be in a relationship with, to me, is a person who lies to themselves. A person who is unwilling to confront their truths to their self will never be able to tell the truth to someone else as a result. And those are the people that will deny their lies to the end. I guess what I'm saying is, yeah, saying "I'm lazy" is self destructive, but there are a lot of people out there who are way more comfortable with telling themselves the lies they want to believe about themselves than actually, you know...paying attention to the metrics that align to whatever behavior they say they don't do. Some people want to believe they are lazy because it allows them to avoid the fact that they are dead weight. This article, and any number of ones like it, is never going to change them.
Lol. I don’t really have anyone like that in my life right now. It’s what I’ve seen in the past. The closest the comes to mind is my sister right now and really I would say her behavior is driven more by insecurity than significant past trauma — as far as I know, of course. But I agree, when considering those in my past who have lied like this, they have had trauma that they have never recovered from. I think you have to protect yourself from other people first before you can empathize too much with them when it comes down to it, and that can mean you need to cut those people out of your life. You can’t help those who don’t see the issue and want to help themselves. Appreciate the thoughts.