on laziness…

Earlier in the evening I was coming back from a walk/run and the kids called asking me to pick up some stuff for making mojitos later in the evening… I walked into the store on our building premises and started picking up stuff, then I saw more stuff and I picked that up as well and then I reached the lemons and picked up 6 of those…. however now both hands were full and I really had no way of picking up a bag and dropping the lemons into it… rookie mistake, should’ve picked up the basket on the way in… anyway so there was this kid all of 6 feet 2inches tall and looking like she was actually not fighting with her mom in that moment (trust me all kids fight their moms at that generic age… all the time). So contrary to character (I am one of those who has a solution for everything and never asks for any help ever… yeah uptight @#$%#$) I said “hey hi, could you please open up one of those bags so I can drop these lemons into it. I’m sorry I have my hands full”. That’s it it was as simple as that, just ask for help when you need help. She said “oh yes no problem at all”, picked up a bag, opened it for me and held it while I dropped the lemons in”… I said “thank you so much” and shuffled away to the cashier after returning the moms smile…

Small incident but it set off a chain of thought. Laziness is what stops us from achieving so much out there. We fail to ask for help, we stop short of being happy because we never pushed the envelop, we tell ourselves it’s not meant for us because if it were then it would happen on it’s own. Too lazy to ask for it and the universe would never give you something you never asked for now would it? In the above example in a different age/place/time the same me would have dropped the lemons back where I picked them from, walked over to the counter, picked up a basket and walked all the way back (or I could’ve just stuffed them into the pockets of my joggers, though that would’ve looked slightly kleptomania-cal). Clearly a lot more work but much easier than mustering up the courage to initiate a conversation. The fact that I now have silver hair but do NOT look like Richard Gere (which I had always wanted since 1990… aah well I look like myself and that is better I guess) does make it easier to start conversations now, maybe that’s what it is.

Thinking a little more about laziness I figured that it has got to be the number one cause for all the frustration and disharmony in the world today. Had the politician, before he became one when he was young, not been lazy he would have struck up a conversation with the girl he fancied, they could have had a romantic relationship, they could’ve gotten married, he could’ve set up his law practice (or tea shop… heck he could’ve started StarRokdo) they could’ve built their own lives, had children, been happy together till the very end… if only he had not been a lazy bum who let his parents arrange his marriage only to promptly run away from it all and live a frustrated life for the rest of his days becoming a problematic politician who revels in anarchy. If only he had not been lazy the world would’ve been a much more peaceful place… See there’s not just one such example… there’s an infinite number of such examples out there (think wars all over the world and you’ll see an infinitely depressed, frustrated, lazy man behind the anarchy)… Laziness foists depression (resentment at not having received from the universe that which they thought they were owed) and that in turn makes men bitter (also a very few women but usually mostly men) and bitter men just go through life being megalomaniacs, always looking for attention, trying to prove to themselves that they are great men… yeah those huge flashy cars, and in some cases reusable rockets, are not really about us, it’s mostly about them… big man small car, small man big car… you get it if you get it…

Every night before going to sleep I take a shower, alternate days while in the shower I make sure I shave properly as well… wouldn’t want to die in my sleep looking like a hobo now would I. Of course some people prefer the stubbled look, some even grow marvelous beards and hey that’s perfectly fine a man’s gotta do what a mans gotta do right? I just wouldn’t appreciate being thrown into the electric crematorium with a 5’Oclock shadow on my face… (and here the lazy minds will start doing additions and subtractions about funeral practices etc. get over it guys there’s not enough space, besides potash provides micro nutrients required for early root development in seedlings)… don’t worry that amount of internal conversation does not go into taking a shower/shaving… I just made that up on the go…

Anyway so this is about laziness and what I am trying to say is that make time, make time for the little things. Life is not so complex, we make it that way. Make time to call back that old aunt who called you just as you were getting into a meeting, make time to do something for others, plant trees (actually plant seeds they will grow into saplings, then you’ll transplant them into large planters, then aphids will attack and destroy the saplings, but then you will go back and do it again, keep doing it till the tree starts to grow stronger don’t become lazy at the first sign of a problem, keep at it), step up and make conversations, ask for help, admit you do not know everything and you haven’t “got it” all the time, be active enough to listen through the noise that is being aired on news channels …don’t watch or read news in the first place it is not news any more just plain propaganda but if you must then do not take it pre-processed. Apply your brains… outrage is manufactured empathy you’ll need to manufacture in your own head. Because if you are lazy, trust me my friend, the politician will make a tool out of you and use you to achieve his objectives in life (which even he has no clue about because remember he’s just over compensating for that small problem… small man big car, big man small car)…

Most important breathe, people around you are happy to help, you just need to breathe, not be lazy and not make a mountain out of a small bag for lemons…