You're lazy But hear me out, You can be even lazier

In the mountains a very long time ago, mountaineers lived of sheer pleasure, hunting and fishing and turning animal skins into clothing. One thing they didn’t have was thoughts of a different world. Because the only thing they cared about was surviving another day.

They didn’t need to think much about the future. They knew whether tomorrow would be summer or if vegetables would stand through winter. They knew enough to plan for the next hunt without hesitation from probable death.

Why am I saying this, you might ask? Well for the simple amplitude of knowledge for you to realize this next crucial point.

I will call this laziness. The fact that somewhere in the forests, a young man dared to reflect and realize that through their survival, they can ease up things. They’d create new ways to hunt without knives but with arrows and in the latter, guns. They’d invent light not by sticks rubbed together to create fire, but with candles and in the latter, lamps.

They’d think of the many ways to settle without sleeping in literal grass and they’d build houses. And they did. In the pursuit to survive while in comfort, the many men and women given the genius minds created and innovated and solved problems for mountaineers to live better. And eventually, they could not be satisfied just by living in the mountains, so they took journeys to far seas and lands, and discovered even better ways to make their lives easier.

In valleys, water became easy to get. Briefly, the world changed and in what many thought, for the better. But that’s the thing about solving problems, new ones are created. And so as they found possibilities of moving around not by foot but by wagons pulled by horses and in the latter, cars; they also created air pollution. Hence, people were forced to care about the world.

Problems rose and to this day, even ungenial people can solve simple tasks like making papers out of woods while depriving the world of its trees. This is not laziness. To many of you, it is development. But as any new development shines, some won’t understand its nature and what it solved. For us, all this innovation to save us from a lifestyle that we don’t even have experience of, made us lazy.

We were born after most problems were eradicated. We never encountered bears on our morning hunt for breakfast. So we took everything we had for granted and hence did whatever we wanted with our endless amount of “natural” resources. Unprecedented presidents that sank their countries, the rise of social media that unfortunately helps in criticizing each other, and many more dangers that we’ve caused ourselves, are products of that.  

The audacity the many men and women had for changing the world in their shape, was courageous and needed. But with this freedom, we have become selfish. With our laziness now, we created wars to oppress the weak, hence creating poverty and famine.

And as if the past didn’t teach us enough—as it is why pulpits devoted to change it—we mistreat women and children. People these days are subject of suicidal thoughts, depression and loneliness; things which didn’t exist in the medieval times. Where they had no time for heartbreaks and stress, only cared about surviving and eating. But with our freedom, we’ve allowed ourselves to feel more than was supposed to be felt.

Please don’t be offended for being called lazy. If you order pizza instead of getting it yourself, then that’s because we’ve created a system that allows you to live easier for your own good. Every lifestyle has its up and downs, unfortunately for us, laziness is one hell of a killjoy.

Every challenge insights a hero. And as we cared more and more about the world, activists, feminists, vegans and many more arose. For it is in our nature to fight back, right? I just hope we remember, it is us that started all of this.

Here’s the plot twist. You can become even lazier. In the past, the need to relax and enjoy life pushed geniuses to work harder in finishing their innovations earlier, hence a rewarding holiday. This can be at our advantage. Becoming lazier can be a form of motivation to actually achieve our goals in time. And even if it is an upside method, you can’t wait for that vacation in Ibiza.

However, this is not easy. Because being lazy comes from the fact that one is tired of an ever ending cycle of solving problems that make their lives harder. And hence a “fuck it” response is upheld. So as we figure out how we can turn tables together, remember that in your plan, you’ve decided to work hard and save millions for a retirement that requires you to sit all day drinking a mimosa. That should give you enough energy to look forward to in your near lazy future.

In the eyes of the mountaineers, the genius souls were fools and lazy, but they built what we see today. A disadvantageous beauty. We are lazy but being lazy isn’t being ignorant. It just means that we need to understand what our elders passed through and know how to use what they created better.

Friedrich Hölderlin once said: “Nothing makes with greater certainty the earth into a hell, than man’s wanting to make it his heaven”. But again with one of his poems, he said: “But where the danger is, also grows the saving power.” This should tell you something.

We don’t need to love the world more than ourselves. That’s where geniuses were wrong. You’re lazy for your own good, this proves your self-love. But hear me out: you can be even lazier. For what? Well, let’s wait and see.