Given that laziness is currently one of humanity’s main problems, I’ve decided to share my experiences and thoughts after noticing changes in this area in myself. Let’s start with an example from the past.

Back then, survival was the primary condition and driver of every action in life (and in preventing laziness). To stay alive, you needed shelter to avoid snow and rain and to prevent a predator from taking you while you slept. Both your conscious and subconscious knew: if you didn’t find shelter tonight, your fate was sealed. That’s point one.

Also, you obtained food through hunting or farming. There was no money to inherit or save, so you couldn’t just order food to your doorstep. That’s point two.

Point three: people who were chemically imbalanced in the brain and inactive would die young and never reach adulthood, so we can assume this group didn’t exist to pass on laziness.

The brain understood that points one and two were prerequisites for survival and reproduction. So you were constantly prompted to perform the actions necessary to meet these needs, staying almost always in motion.

Fast forward to the present:

You’re likely living at home, with your first need automatically met. Your second need is also covered by your parents, inheritance, or savings. You can be fairly confident that even if you don’t work for months, you’ll have shelter and food. What happens then? The brain pulls the emergency brake and asks: why work hard if these two needs are already met? Your lower muscles relax, and laziness sets in. Why? Because there’s no vital need driving you.

In this situation, you need a motivator to overcome laziness. The first motivator that comes to mind is leaving your family and becoming independent. That’s exactly what happened to me. Someone who was previously critically lazy now works nine hours a day coding at a job and, at home, writes solutions on paper for bugs that might be solved tomorrow. Why? Because if my monthly salary isn’t deposited, I’d fail completely and become homeless in a foreign country.

Other motivators include jealousy or competition. I know people who spent two years ruining someone else’s business just to get back at them. Jealousy, despite its negative connotation, pushes you to ask: “Why does that person have that thing? I want it too.” And so you start moving to acquire it.

In conclusion, if you struggle with laziness, creative destruction is your only option for liberation. Destroy what you have and force yourself into motion. After a while, even half an hour of doing nothing in a day becomes stressful and unbearable.

Related:
- Oblomovs of the World, Unite