One of the most challenging tasks is finding one’s place in life, and it is accompanied by the necessity to continuously achieve goals and strive for success in any possible way. Such a position creates intense pressure and leads to the emergence of stress and, as a consequence, a state that people call laziness. However, the mechanism of its work is not explicitly determined, and there are no efficient methods to deal with it. The reason is the lack of understanding of the phenomenon, which leads to the generalization of motives without considering real issues. Hence, laziness is a mere myth, and a number of conditions are simply brought under this definition without examining the causes of human behavior.
The first and most crucial consideration while re-defining laziness is the impact of a societal environment on a person. According to Devon Price, a psychology professor at Loyola University Chicago’s School, it predicts one’s behavior better than any other individual factors such as a level of intelligence or skills (Price). The connection between the so-called laziness and society is defined by the impact of the latter on a person’s behavioral patterns. Hence, people’s behavior reflects the changes in their situations that, in turn, provoke barriers to action (Price). Such a conclusion allows reconsidering the existing knowledge and addressing the issues related to laziness properly through the detailed examination of its causes.
One of the principal issues, which are often confused with laziness, is procrastination, but it has nothing to do with being lazy. The researchers claim that it is a functioning problem related to numerous reasons other than laziness (Price). In fact, procrastination results from a lack of self-confidence and poor planning skills (Prices). From my personal experience, I would say that my friends who tend to procrastinate when studying are struggling with their perceptions but not laziness. Most tasks seem to be too complicated for them as they require following specific steps for fulfillment. Therefore, these people seem to be lazy as they postpone assignments due to their complexity and as a result of the inability to divide them into parts, which proves the idea of poor planning skills mentioned above.
Another possible reason for “laziness” is a misinterpretation of one’s motives and neglect for specific issues connected to psychological health. Thus, for example, people with depression or mental illnesses are labeled as lazy, whereas their conditions require consideration on an individual basis (Price). However, educators do not normally examine these factors while one’s competency does not correlate with his or her laziness, and such bias leads to a worsening of the situations of such people (Price). Therefore, in order to conclude on someone’s laziness, it is vital to exclude possible barriers, and extrinsic factors as generalization is not applicable to the case.
All in all, laziness is a myth, which contributes to making judgments on one’s competency and capability without considering the circumstances of his or her life. Hence, after the exclusion of all potential barriers to fulfilling tasks, such a characteristic does not apply to people anymore. These barriers include a range of individual factors, relationships, depression, mental illnesses, and other conditions that are often misinterpreted as laziness. As for procrastination, it is simply a result of one’s inability to plan work or a possible consequence of low self-confidence. Thus, there are no lazy people but people with problems that should be solved instead of being attributed to laziness.
Work Cited
Price, Devon. Laziness Does Not Exist. Human Parts, 2018, Web.