How lazy is too lazy?

I had gotten to my car and was all buckled in and ready to go.  Then a picture flashed across my mind – it was a picture of my breakfast and my lunch, still sitting on the kitchen counter.  Shoot!  I debated for about half a second and then thought, “Forget it.  I’ll just go hungry for breakfast and get something at work for lunch.”  Then I thought, “Dang, girl!  Just how lazy is too lazy?”

Part of it was just that I hate retracing my steps.  I hate it.  Sure, I’d go back for my cell phone, but I can’t buy another one of those at work.

How about if you find a container of really old food in the back of the fridge, and it’s super gross – green and orange and fuzzy.  If you throw it away, is that too lazy?  Or is it prudent, because…gross!  That’s like a bomb in there.

When is it being lazy, when is it procrastination, and when is it just avoiding things you don’t particularly want to do?  Are they all the same thing?

Several people mentioned things they do in order to avoid ironing.  Is it lazy to spritz the clothes and re-dry them, even though it achieves the same results as ironing?  At least three people said they hang their clothes up immediately out of the dryer, so they don’t have to iron.  But is that lazy or is it efficient?

Define lazy.

In talking to people about laziness, it’s clear to me that Lazy is in the eye of the beholder.  What some consider lazy, others think is perfectly reasonable.  Also, it seems lazy and guilt are tied together.  If we feel a little guilty about it, then we think we’re being lazy.

What parts of your lazy are inherited?  

Here is what some other people said:

Gloria: In the morning, my boyfriend will want to go out and get breakfast and bring it back to the house, but I try to talk him out of it.  I’d rather cook breakfast myself than go through the trouble of going out to get something.  Basically, I don’t want to leave the house.

Sharon: When I’m ringing people up at the register, I’ll find myself leaning on the counter, and I really hate that.  I think that’s so lazy.  I’ll catch myself doing that and I immediately make myself stand up straight.

Lynn: I’m not ever lazy – I’m so anal about stuff.  I’m more OCD.

John: One thing I can think of – in a way it’s lazy and in a way it’s not; in a way I guess it’s almost making a little bit more work on yourself.  But, we won’t have any ice tea made and instead of just going into the kitchen and boiling water for tea bags and all that, I’ll actually go get in the truck and I’ll drive down to McDonald’s and get two cups of sweet tea and come back home.  So in a way it’s lazy because I’m not going into the kitchen and boiling water, but in the other way…I’m actually walking out to the truck and driving a mile to McDonald’s and then driving back.

Terri: We’ll text each other in the same house! 

Julie: I have my grandkids scratch my feet.  Those little kids will give me a full pedicure!

Rebecca: Look at my house, and then ask what my lazy might be!  I think my lazy is that I want to do stuff outside the house, but then I don’t want to drive to do them.  If someone else were to drive me, I would go all day long and do whatever, but if I have to drive, I won’t do things that I need to do or that I want to do.  Sometimes when I have too much on my plate, of things that I should do, I don’t do anything because it’s overwhelming to me.  I shut down and don’t do anything.  I don’t know if that’s lazy or just a reaction to being overwhelmed.

Daniel: I drive to work, even though I only live a mile away.

Abena: Lying in bed all day when I know I have tons of things to do.

Donna: I’m not lazy.  I pulled weeds as I was getting in my car this morning.

Nadia: When I don’t have to work or anything to do, I don’t set the alarm, and I don’t get up until 3 or 4pm.  I hang my clothes up immediately out of the dryer so I don’t have to iron.

Natalie:  I will text my kids, in my bed, when they’re in their room, to go downstairs and get me some water.  Or sometimes I have texted them and said, “Will you come and close my bedroom door?”  

Kyle: I use the snooze button.  I will put my clothes back in the dryer instead of ironing them.

Logan: I starve because I’m too lazy.  I can open the fridge and see a plate of food already prepared, and not really want to put it in the microwave to heat it up.  I’ll get up 10 to 20 times just to walk in and look at it, and go back in my room because I won’t put it in the microwave.  Because I don’t feel like dealing with putting it in the microwave, getting it out, actually eating it and then cleaning up later.
—Rebecca: What else are you lazy about?
Logan: I dislike chores.  I dislike having to do just about everything, except for maybe soccer.  But soccer is sometimes a battle, because that means I have to get out of bed, get dressed, go to the field.  Once I’m at the field I’m fine.

Peyton: Not getting up in the morning – getting ready for school.

Fez: I guess it’s when I absolutely don’t have anything to do, and I should be doing something.

Beverly: Sometimes I turn the dryer on another 15 minutes because I’m too lazy to get up and fold them!  And I have bought lunch because I was too lazy to go back and pick mine up off the counter, too.

Vicki: I think my biggest thing is procrastination!

Group Conversation:

Martha: Oh, I can just sit there and see things that I need to do and just go, “oh well.”
—Tina: Stepping over something on the floor.  That is the most irritating thing ever.  Somedays I can see something on the ground and think, “yeah I should pick that up… in about 20 minutes.”
Tom: I don’t believe there’s such a thing as too lazy.  It’s a philosophy.
—Tina: See, I’m not naturally a lazy person.
Jacque: I’m naturally a lazy person.
—Tom: You’re not a naturally lazy person, Jacque.  You acquired that.
Martha: It came from (our side of the family).  When you hooked on that last name, you got it.
—Michelle: Steve, what’s the laziest thing you do?
Steve: Try to sleep til 12.
—Michelle: Try to sleep til 12?  Or actually sleep til 12?
Steve: I used to be able to do that…
—Rebecca: I let him sleep until 9.
Michelle: How bout you, Jim, are you lazy?
—Jim: Yeah…that’s an inherited thing.
and finally, Tom says: 

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