Making Excuses Into Reality : A Downward Spiral for the Feeble of Will

It is worth noting that whenever a person decides against doing something (as we all do every day), they either implicitly or explicitly make a mental note of the reason why they picked an alternative action. Those mental notes are typically called excuses, and everybody has them. However, often we deceive ourselves into believing that our reasons are more noble than they actually are. We think "I'm busy" instead of "I'm lazy", "I don't want to inconvinience you" instead of "I'm lazy", "It's meant to be" instead of "I'm lazy" or what have you. These fraudulent excuses are not really true even though we believe them. This creates a complex psychological situation - you're lying to yourself about yourself.

When you lie to yourself about something, you subconsciously will put every effort imaginable into making that lie come true, but also you will act as if it were true in other aspects of your life. Say, for example, your life is too hectic and busy to call your parents. Then, if you decide to watch a little TV - there's a contradiction, so you re-excuse yourself. You're so busy that by the end of the day you're too tired to do anything but watch TV, you don't even enjoy it. This effect is purely psychosomatic - if you just called your parents, you would enjoy your TV a lot more and you wouldn't be that tired (or alternatively if you decided you simply don't want to call them, and would rather watch TV instead).

However, if you're busy and tired, you should try to rest more, maybe try to relax and distract yourself by watching a little more TV. A vicious cycle. Anything that has to be done, but has an easier alternative will not get done until the urgency exceeds your laziness. The only way to combat laziness is to not be lazy. Most people can stop being lazy on demand.

Just stop being lazy so I don't have to.


Today's incoherent rant has been brought to you by the letter blah.